On April 24, the Brookings Institution in Washington D.C. convened a forum on Drug Development for Neglected Diseases, focusing on the public-private partnership (PPP, also known as Product Development Partnership) approach to global health research. Delivering the opening remarks was Dr. Mary Moran, the principal author of a recent London School of Economics study that offered a positive assessment of the PPP model, including the TB Alliance’s own drug development program.
"[One] thing was very clear: that the PPP approach, the partnered approach, performed better than either industry alone or public alone, because it had a structural fit. PPPs involve the public and the private and, to some degree, have an industry mindset in funding," said Dr. Moran, referring to her study.
Dr. Moran called for increased public funding to support collaborative partnerships between not-for-profits and the pharmaceutical industry. By the end of 2004, PPPs had generated forty-seven new research projects targeting neglected diseases – that number may now be over sixty. The TB Alliance currently accounts for eleven of these active programs.