NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought the profile and importance of global health innovations into stark relief. Genomic tracking and mapping, digital health innovations, and messenger RNA technology took on new relevance as these existing tools were applied to an urgent and ubiquitous problem. With the accompanying surge in global health research and development, the pandemic has become a unique moment of opportunity — inspiring conversations around what is going right, what needs to be done better, and how COVID-19 innovations can be applied to other diseases.

And yet, while attention on research and development has soared, the perennial global health challenges of building supply chains and capacity, bringing costs down, and encouraging creativity and innovation from the private sector remain critical issues.

Join Devex Senior Reporter Catherine Cheney on Tuesday, Dec. 14, at 10 a.m. ET (4 p.m. CET) for a conversation with Trevor Mundel, president of the global health division of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation on the status of the global health research and development ecosystem nearly two years into the COVID-19 pandemic and what recent developments mean for the future of vaccines, diagnostics, therapeutics, and access.

The conversation will be followed by closing remarks from Sarah Des Rosiers, associate director of population health for the Novartis Foundation.

DECEMBER 14, 2021 – 10 a.m. ET | 4 p.m. CET