Product Development Partnerships 'essential' in fight against global diseases

"If the momentum gained in the last few years" in fighting global diseases such as HIV, tuberculosis (TB), malaria, measles, and meningitis "is any indicator of our future trajectory, we are standing on the threshold of a revolutionary change in the state of global health," Wendy Taylor, senior adviser of Innovative Finance and Public Private Partnerships at USAID, and David Cook, executive vice president and COO of the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI), write in this opinion piece in The Hill's "Congress Blog." They discuss the importance of "Product Development Partnerships, or PDPs for short," which "are great examples of public-private collaborations [that] are starting to build deep pipelines for new drugs, vaccines, and diagnostic tools."

The authors discuss several examples of PDPs, including collaboration between USAID and IAVI to develop a safe and effective HIV vaccine. "More ground-breaking research will be needed to fully develop vaccine, drug and diagnostic candidates and take them through late-stage clinical trials. PDPs will be essential to ensure the development, safety and success of these products," they conclude (12/1).