Public-private partnership pilot program could facilitate drug development for neglected diseases

The National Center for Advancing Translational Science (NCATS) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced a pilot program under which "three pharmaceutical companies have agreed to make dozens of their failed compounds available to researchers, who will investigate if the compounds can be re-purposed into successful treatments for other diseases," Ashley Bennett, senior policy associate at the Global Health Technologies Coalition (GHTC), writes in the group's "Breakthroughs" blog. "With this new therapeutics program, NIH and NCATS have created an exciting, innovative model for collaboration between the public and private sectors. ... Now NCATS must ensure that research for neglected diseases is encouraged and supported through this initiative," Bennett says (5/7).