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Reboot biomedical R&D in the global public interest

Inequitable access to the fruits of research during the COVID-19 pandemic highlights the urgency — and feasibility — of overhauling the R&D system.
  1. Soumya Swaminathan

    1. Soumya Swaminathan is chief scientist at the World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland.

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  2. Bernard Pécoul

    1. Bernard Pécoul is executive director at the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative, Geneva, Switzerland.

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  3. Hisham Abdullah

    1. Hisham Abdullah is director-general of the Ministry of Health, Malaysia.

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  4. Christos Christou

    1. Christos Christou is international president of Médecins Sans Frontières, Geneva, Switzerland.

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  5. Glenda Gray

    1. Glenda Gray is president and chief executive of the Medical Research Council, Cape Town, South Africa.

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  6. Carel IJsselmuiden

    1. Carel IJsselmuiden is executive director of the Council on Health Research for Development, Geneva, Switzerland, and professor in the School of Applied Human Sciences, University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.

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  7. Marie Paule Kieny

    1. Marie Paule Kieny is director of research, INSERM, Paris, France.

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  8. Mariana Mazzucato

    1. Mariana Mazzucato is professor in the economics of innovation and public value at University College London (UCL), and founder of the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose.

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  9. Veronika von Messling

    1. Veronika von Messling is director-general of the Life Sciences Division, Federal Ministry of Education and Research, Bonn, Germany.

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  10. Bernhards Ogutu

    1. Bernhards Ogutu is chief research officer at the Kenya Medical Research Institute, Nairobi, Kenya.

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  11. John Reeder

    1. John Reeder is director of TDR, the Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases, World Health Organization; and director of the Research for Health Department, World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland.

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  12. John-Arne Røttingen

    1. John-Arne Røttingen is ambassador for global health at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Oslo, Norway.

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  13. Renu Swarup

    1. Renu Swarup is former secretary of the Department of Biotechnology, Ministry of Science and Technology, New Delhi, India.

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  14. Marcel Tanner

    1. Marcel Tanner is president of the Swiss Academies of Arts and Sciences, Bern; and professor at the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, Basel, Switzerland.

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  15. Nísia Trindade Lima

    1. Nísia Trindade Lima is president of the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

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  16. Michelle Childs

    1. Michelle Childs is director of policy advocacy at the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative, Geneva, Switzerland.

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  17. Alex Harris

    1. Alex Harris is associate director for Government Relations and Strategic Partnerships at Wellcome, London, UK.

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  18. Els Torreele

    1. Els Torreele is a policy associate at University College London, UK.

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  19. Suerie Moon

    1. Suerie Moon is co-director of the Global Health Centre and professor of practice, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva, Switzerland.

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Employees work inside a laboratory at a pharmaceutical plant in India producing generic medicines to treat HIV

Workers in south India make low-cost, generic HIV drugs that will expand access to therapies. Credit: Sara Hylton/Bloomberg/Getty

COVID-19 diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccines are powerful reminders: health technologies can help to shape the way in which societies control disease. Challenges in ensuring global, equitable access to these fruits of biomedical research and development (R&D) during the COVID-19 pandemic have highlighted the urgency of reorienting the system towards the public interest. The first step is a clearer articulation of what R&D in the global public interest is. That is what we seek to do here.

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Nature 602, 207-210 (2022)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-00324-y

The views expressed in this article by WHO employees S.S. and J.R. are personal and do not necessarily represent the views, decisions or policies of the World Health Organization.

Updates & Corrections

  • Update 10 February 2022: The author details for Carel Ijsselmuiden have been updated to include a second affiliation.

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Supplementary Information

  1. Acknowledgements

Competing Interests

H.A., C.C., B.O. and S.M. are members of the Board of Directors, Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative, of which M.P.K. is the Board chair. E.T. is a member of Médecins Sans Frontières, and Board member of Agora Open Science Trust. M.P.K. is Board chair of the Medicines Patent Pool. S.M.’s family member is employed by the Medicines Patent Pool.

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