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Shkreli’s Latest Plan to Sharply Raise Drug Price Prompts Outcry
Martin Shkreli is once again provoking alarm with a plan to sharply increase the price of a decades-old drug for a serious infectious disease. This time the drug treats Chagas disease, a parasitic infection that can cause potentially lethal heart problems.
- Categories
- Health Care
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Harvard Leadership Programme Helps Baby-Boomer Bosses to Save the World
About a year and a half ago, Ken Kelley, the founder of Paxvax, a vaccine company which focuses on the travel industry, became afflicted with what he calls an “intellectual itch”. He wondered why certain diseases, such as Ebola and dengue fever, lack vaccine protection.
- Categories
- Environment, Health Care
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Vaxess Co-Founder Wants to ‘Play a Role in the Eradication of Polio’
It's a rarity that an idea borne out of a classroom has the ability to take shape in such a powerful way -- but the team at Vaxess Technologies has come closer than many.
- Categories
- Health Care
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NexThought Monday: Women Entrepreneurs to the Rescue
Ebola was always an emergency within an emergency, says Faruque Ahmed, executive director of BRAC International. Now, with the immediate threat of the disease gone, West Africans have the much-needed space to shift their energies back to tackling the even greater scourge of rural poverty and powerlessness.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Health Care
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Viewpoint: Health: The Glaring Omission at COP21
Malaria in Europe? It sounds quite implausible doesn't it but such a scenario may not be too far off. The disease is currently confined to Africa, Latin America and South-East Asia, but the impacts of climate change on the health of individuals and populations, combined with the globalization of trade, could see it spread to parts of southern Europe. This scenario will happen if the issue of health is still ignored by world leaders meeting this week for the United Nations climate change conference in Paris.
- Categories
- Health Care
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The Ebola Vaccine, Latrogenic Injuries, and Legal Liability
Making vaccines is a risky, oftentimes unenviable business. Vaccines are administered to healthy people who tend to be unforgiving if an adverse side effect or injury subsequently develops. The risk of being sued, even when a vaccine supplier follows best practices, combined with growing anti-vaccination sentiment, creates a climate that is not conducive to vaccine innovation. The dissuasive effect of litigation risk and legal liability is heightened both for vaccines aimed at diseases of poor countries, for which the financial inducements are weak anyway [1,2], and vaccines for public health emergencies, which are developed in accelerated clinical trials that may lack the statistical power or detailed follow-up necessary to detect rare adverse effects. Yet, as the West African Ebola outbreak demonstrates, the world can ill afford not to have vaccines against diseases of poverty in emergency situations [1]. Several reasons exist for not having a vaccine available, relating to the biology of the virus and the epidemiological challenges pertaining to evaluating a vaccine for a rare disease. However, financial incentives and disincentives for vaccine manufactures to invest in vaccine trials for rare diseases in resource-poor countries also need to be considered. We argue that, as one part of a comprehensive plan to promote vaccine development, there needs to be a plan to lessen the risks of litigation and liability to remove disincentives for these vaccines to be developed and later deployed. As others point out, no satisfactory plan now exists [3].
- Categories
- Health Care
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Anti-TB Fight Has Big Return on Investment, Says Health Minister
Investing in the fight against tuberculosis (TB) offers potentially huge future savings, with an estimated return of $85 for every dollar spent.
- Categories
- Health Care, Investing
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Crédit Rural de Guinée Wins 6th European Microfinance Award, for Innovative Response to Ebola Outbreak
Crédit Rural de Guinée (CRG) has been announced as the winner of the 6 th European Microfinance Award, focusing this year on Microfinance in Post-disaster, Post-conflict Areas & Fragile States, for its innovative response to the Ebola outbreak in Guinea. The Award was presented during European Microfinance Week by Her Royal Highness the Grand Duchess of Luxembourg, during a ceremony on 19th November held at the European Investment Bank Headquarters in Luxembourg.
- Categories
- Investing
- Region
- Europe & Eurasia