Shaping a better future for children exposed to MDR-TB
Strategy development launched and new areas for intervention agreed at 37th meeting of Unitaid’s Executive Board
Geneva – Unitaid will expand its portfolio to target challenges in reducing maternal mortality and tools for detecting tuberculosis, as a result of decisions taken at the 37th meeting of its Executive Board.
Held virtually from the 9th to 10th December 2020, the meeting also saw Unitaid launch the development of its new strategy for 2022-26, agree its budget for 2021 and invite Japan to join the Executive Board.
The Board has approved an external review as an important step towards the development of Unitaid’s next strategy. As a key component of this process, extensive stakeholder engagement will be undertaken throughout 2021, to gain the thoughts and inputs of Unitaid’s partners, grant implementers and civil society groups.
The new areas for intervention agreed by the Board focus on challenges that are deeply relevant to Unitaid’s core work, namely reducing the number of women who die in pregnancy or childbirth, and increasing the detection of TB.
Almost 300,000 women died as a result of pregnancy or childbirth in 2017, mostly in low- and middle-income countries. Unitaid sees great potential in new tools to treat post-partum haemorrhage and pre-eclampsia in particular, leveraging our comparative advantage and strong track record in related areas.
Tuberculosis detection is recognised as a high-impact area for intervention which could play a significant role in advancing both the WHO End TB strategy and the Sustainable Development Goals. Without substantial investment in detection tools, TB will continue to be a leading cause of death in many low- and middle-income countries and among the most vulnerable. Unitaid is pleased to take this opportunity to examine the potential impact of innovations, particularly in the areas of non-sputum based testing and integrated diagnostic solutions, while leveraging the learnings from COVID-19.
Unitaid’s Executive Board Chair Marisol Touraine said: “I am proud that Unitaid’s Executive Board showed ambition and openness. This meeting was extremely productive and strategic. We were able to express a clear and strategic vision for Unitaid to build on its historic ground-breaking work, as well as areas such as maternal and child health, while maintaining its vital role in the fight against COVID-19. This meeting was also an exciting moment as we expanded our Executive Board for the first time in many years by creating a temporary board seat and welcoming Japan, as well as taking the first steps towards developing the new strategy for 2022-26.”
Unitaid’s Executive Director Philippe Duneton said: “It is fantastic to see the board approve future investments in the fields of maternal health and TB detection, which are key elements of Unitaid’s mandate. It is clear that innovation has a vital role to play in bringing down the number of deaths of women during childbirth and pregnancy. Improving how TB is detected, and identifying cases of TB more quickly and easily is even more important in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Media contact:
- Charlotte Baker | tel. +44 7904 460 181 | bakerc@unitaid.who.int
In times of COVID-19, innovation has a crucial role to play to eliminate tuberculosis
The Global Health Innovative Technology Fund and Unitaid collaboration to accelerate access to innovative solutions
Tokyo and Geneva – The Global Health Innovative Technology Fund (GHIT) and Unitaid have signed a collaboration framework that aims to increase awareness of and access to innovation and expertise in key areas such as malaria, tuberculosis and neglected tropical diseases.
In the context of achieving the health-related Sustainable Development Goals and universal health coverage, GHIT and Unitaid will use this new collaborative framework to coordinate actions to accelerate access to innovative solutions, focusing on products and technologies that can deliver the most impact on the ground and address the global health-related needs.
The framework will operate at a broad strategic level to support alignment between GHIT’s strength in product development and Unitaid’s expertise in promoting access to and scale-up of health innovations. It also creates a channel for continuous dialogue between the two parties as part of their goals to bring innovation to vulnerable and underserved populations as part of reaching universal health coverage.
The GHIT Fund is a Japan-based international public-private partnership fund (PPP) between the Government of Japan, multiple pharmaceutical companies, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Wellcome, and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The GHIT Fund invests and manages an R&D portfolio of development partnerships aimed at neglected diseases, such as malaria, tuberculosis and neglected tropical diseases that afflict the world’s vulnerable and underserved populations. The GHIT Fund mobilizes the Japanese industry, academia, and research institutes to create new drugs, vaccines, and diagnostics for malaria, tuberculosis, and neglected tropical diseases, in collaboration with global partners.
For more information:
Hervé Verhoosel
Head of Communications
Unitaid, Geneva
tel. +44 77 29 618 634
Unitaid deepens its commitment to fighting epidemics old and new, marks World Tuberculosis Day
Geneva – On this World TB Day, Unitaid is strengthening its commitment to fight the world’s deadliest infectious killer by protecting the most vulnerable–a mission that is more important than ever as the world battles the COVID-19 pandemic.
Every year 10 million people fall ill with TB and 1.5 million die from the disease. The world can end the epidemic if the right prevention, tests and treatments are made available to everybody who needs them.
“Attacking this deadly respiratory disease from all sides–prevention, diagnosis and treatment–is even more critical in these extraordinary times of COVID-19, where thousands of vulnerable people are dying and health systems are struggling to keep up,” said Dr Philippe Duneton, Unitaid Executive Director a.i.
Unitaid is the world’s largest multilateral funder of TB research and development. The organization invests in better, more affordable drugs, faster, more accurate diagnostics and integrated models of care to tackle TB and its drug-resistant forms.
In 2019, Unitaid invested a further US$ 50 million in the fight against TB. Three new projects will bring gene-based diagnosis, better treatments for children and ingenious technologies that will help patients adhere to their medicines.
In November, Unitaid and partners negotiated a groundbreaking 66 percent price discount for 3HP, a WHO-recommended regimen for TB prevention, a deal that broadens access to this lifesaving treatment to more than 100 countries. The deal came after a Unitaid-funded study showed that 3HP is safe when co-administered with DTG, an effective first-line HIV drug.
Unitaid’s TB portfolio has nearly doubled over the past few years and is on track to reach US$ 300 million by the end of 2020.
Related publications:
- Unitaid and tuberculosis (Factsheet)
- Turning the tide against TB (Unitaid TB Portfolio)
- Unitaid-funded projects against TB
For more information: Priyamvada CHUGH, chughp@unitaid.who.int
The Hummingbird. Unitaid News – January 2020
Unitaid invests in long-acting medicines to simplify treatment and prevention for HIV, TB, malaria and HCV
Geneva – Unitaid will invest US$ 39 million in two projects to speed up the development of long-acting versions of medicines for low- and middle-income countries. Innovative ways to administer drugs, which have revolutionized contraception and the treatment of schizophrenia, could redefine prevention and treatment of infectious diseases, but remain at early stages of research because of market barriers.
Unitaid today signed a US$ 32 million grant with the University of Liverpool and a US$ 6.9 million grant with the University of Washington to help develop and commercialize long-acting medicines for HIV, TB, malaria and hepatitis C (HCV). Unitaid has invested heavily in creating better, more affordable medicines and making them accessible; the new investments build on that work by making more efficient ways for patients to take them.
“We see an enormous potential in this technology for changing people’s lives,” Unitaid Deputy Executive Director Philippe Duneton said.
University of Washington’s four-year GLAD project will transform combination HIV pill regimens that contain the drug dolutegravir into an injectable that lasts from one to three months. The goal is to develop an effective, long-acting alternative to the daily pill that is now the standard of care.
“We are excited that the GLAD project is in a position to contribute to making the best available HIV combination medicine long-lasting, and to work toward worldwide access,” said Professor Rodney Ho, director of the Targeted, Long-acting and Combination Antiretroviral Program at the University of Washington. “Through the partnership and support of Unitaid, our innovations in targeted drug-combination technology could be leveraged to make a global impact on long-lasting HIV treatment and prevention.”
University of Liverpool’s five-year LONGEVITY project will develop long-acting formulations of drugs for malaria and TB prevention, and a cure for HCV. As part of the project, partners will create a Centre of Excellence in Long-Acting Therapeutics with a laboratory dedicated to product development. Johns Hopkins University, Clinton Health Access Initiative, University of Nebraska, Treatment Action Group and Tandem Nano Ltd. will participate in the project.
“My feeling is that we are witnessing a change in the paradigm for treatment of chronic diseases, but also semi-chronic disease,” said Andrew Owen, professor of pharmacology at the University of Liverpool, where the LONGEVITY project will take place. Owen gave the example of how a long-acting formulation could work for malaria prevention: “The hope is that the medicines will enable entire villages across high-burden countries to be effectively protected from acquiring malaria for the entire duration of the rainy season. We also hope huge benefits will be available for TB prevention and HCV therapy, focusing on high-risk groups across low- and middle-income countries.”
Safe and effective daily oral medicines are available to prevent and treat major diseases, but when they are not taken consistently, treatments fail and illness spreads. Poor adherence can also allow drug-resistant microbes to develop. Long-acting technologies offer a simpler way of administering medicines that frees patients from daily pills, makes it easier for them to start and stay on treatment, and reduces the burden on health systems. In places where certain diseases are stigmatized, long-acting medicines can provide people with a more discreet treatment.
The long-acting medicines projects complement other Unitaid work to expand access to much-needed drugs and diagnostics. The Unitaid-funded Medicines Patent Pool will work to ensure that formulations developed by GLAD and LONGEVITY will be accessible where they are needed.
Related publication:
Our projects:
For more information:
- Carol MASCIOLA, masciolac@unitaid.who.int