Lancet commentary highlights Unitaid interest in long-acting technologies to treat diseases

GENEVA – Unitaid is working with partners and stakeholders to explore introduction of long -acting (LA) technologies – such as injectable drugs, patches and implants – to treat infectious diseases in low and middle-income counties (LMICs), according to a commentary co-authored by Unitaid’s Executive Director Lelio Marmora and published in the Lancet.

“To avoid the pitfalls of the past, when new medicines were introduced first in high-income countries and only much later in LMICs, we need to be thinking ahead about LA technologies for infectious diseases,” said the article, co-authored by Carmen Perez Casas, Ian Grubb, Craig McClure and Marmora.

A global technical consultation will be held in Geneva on 1-2 November to consider the science and market landscapes for LA technologies.

Scientific and technological advances may make it possible over the next decade for children to be protected from malaria for an entire season with a single injection of chemoprophylaxis, for example, or for women to protect themselves from being infected with HIV by taking capsules once a fortnight that slowly release antiretroviral medicine.

The article cited Cabotegravir, a new antiretroviral drug, that is being studied as a singular intramuscular injection every eight weeks for pre-exposure prophylaxis, as well as LA formulations in malaria that are being explored for chemoprophylaxis and vector control.

Apart from injectable drugs, once-weekly gastric resident capsules, various types of patches, implants and vaginal rings were also being developed to deliver long-acting medicines, the article said.

Long-acting technologies are likely to pose big challenges in low and middle-income countries and will require stronger health systems in managing supply chains and medical waste.

Difficult intellectual property and generic manufacturing issues will also have to be sorted out before the completion of clinical trials, if LA products are to be sourced from generic suppliers, as is the case with more than 90 percent of antiretroviral drugs supplied by funders such as the Global Fund and the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the article added.

“Above all, LA approaches in addition to being safe must be designed upfront for simplicity to minimize burden and increase convenience for patients, providers and health services.” Please click here to read the commentary in full.

Global health organizations commit to new ways of working together for greater impact

Berlin – Eleven heads of the world’s leading health and development organizations today signed a landmark commitment to find new ways of working together to accelerate progress towards achieving the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.

Coordinated by the World Health Organization, the initiative unites the work of 11 organizations, with others set to join in the next phase.

The commitment follows a request from Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo of Ghana, and Prime Minister Erna Solberg of Norway, with support from United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, to develop a global action plan to define how global actors can better collaborate to accelerate progress towards the health-related targets of the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda.

“Healthy people are essential for sustainable development – to ending poverty, promoting peaceful and inclusive societies and protecting the environment. However, despite great strides made against many of the leading causes of death and disease, we must redouble our efforts or we will not reach several of the health-related targets,” the organizations announced today at the World Health Summit in Berlin. “The Global Action Plan represents an historic commitment to new ways of working together to accelerate progress toward meeting the 2030 goals. We are committed to redefine how our organizations work together to deliver more effective and efficient support to countries and to achieve better health and well-being for all people.”

The group has agreed to develop new ways of working together to maximize resources and measure progress in a more transparent and engaging way. The first phase of the plan’s development is organized under three strategic approaches: align, accelerate and account.

Align: The organizations have committed to coordinate programmatic, financing and operational processes to increase collective efficiency and impact on a number of shared priorities such as gender equality and reproductive, maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health.

Accelerate: They have agreed to develop common approaches and coordinate action in areas of work that have the potential to increase the pace of progress in global health. The initial set of seven “accelerators” include community and civil society engagement, research and development, data and sustainable financing.

Account: To improve transparency and accountability to countries and development partners, the health organizations are breaking new ground by setting common milestones for nearly 50 health-related targets across 14 Sustainable Development Goals. These milestones will provide a critical checkpoint and common reference to determine where the world stands in 2023 and whether it is on track to reach the 2030 goals.

The Global Action Plan will also enhance collective action and leverage funds to address gender inequalities that act as barriers to accessing health, and to improve comprehensive quality health care for women and girls, including sexual and reproductive health services.

The organizations that have already signed up to the Global Action Plan for Healthy Lives and Well-being for All are: Gavi the Vaccine Alliance, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the Global Financing Facility, UNAIDS, UNDP, UNFPA, UNICEF, Unitaid, UN Women, the World Bank and WHO. The World Food Programme has committed to join the plan in the coming months.

The final plan will be delivered in September 2019 at the United Nations General Assembly.

For more information, www.who.int/sdg/global-action-plan

Media enquiries

Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance : Frédérique Tissandier; +41 79 300 8253; ftissandier@gavi.org

Global Fund: Ibon Villelabeitia; +41 79 292 5426; ibbon.Villelabeitia@theglobalfund.org

UNAIDS: Sophie Barton-Knott; +41 79 514 6896; bartonknotts@unaids.org

UNDP: Adam Cathro; +19179159725; adam.cathro@undp.org

UNFPA: Omar Gharzeddine; +1 212 297 5028; gharzeddine@unfpa.org

UNICEF: Sabrina Sidhu; +1 917 476 1537; ssidhu@unicef.org

Unitaid: Andrew Hurst, +41795616807; hursta@unitaid.who.int

UN Women: Maria Sanchez Aponte; +16467814507; maria.sanchez@unwomen.org

World Bank Group: Maya Brahmam; +1 202 361 2594; mbrahmam@worldbankgroup.org

WHO: Christian Lindmeier; +4179 500 6552; lindmeierch@who.int

Making lifesaving medicines affordable

Building country capacity to support access to medicines

Affordable medicines for developing countries

Unitaid expands its work on access to medicines

Unitaid is pleased to announce that its Executive Board has approved three new projects that aim to safeguard public health by increasing access to affordable medicines.

The project implementers, selected through a competitive process, are International Treatment Preparedness Coalition (ITPC), South Centre, and Third World Network.

The investments will help expand access to more affordable medicines, a fundamental aspect of the right to health and essential to reaching the UN’s sustainable development goals on health.

The grants stem from a 2017 Unitaid call for proposals to help countries use flexibilities and provisions under global intellectual property agreements and laws to improve access to affordable medicines in order to safeguard public health.

Unitaid will invest a total of US$ 22 million in the three projects, in addition to its ongoing support to the Medicines Patent Pool.

Unitaid’s impact 2017 results & key performance indicators

Unitaid is pleased to share its 2017 results report (French), which shows significant progress across Unitaid’s portfolio in supporting our three strategic objectives: fostering innovation, increasing access to better health products, and working with partners to scale up our innovations.

To meet our goals, we need a clear way of measuring our progress toward them. The results report shows Unitaid’s performance in a number of critical areas and compares it to the goals we’ve set for ourselves, including Unitaid’s Strategic and Operational Key Performance Indicators.

All Unitaid grants that closed during 2017 fall within the scope of the report. Highlights include the STEP-TB program, which secured the availability of the first appropriately dosed, good-tasting tuberculosis medicine for children, brought it to market at an affordable price, and has led, with the support of scale-up partners, to the medicine’s adoption in 79 countries.

The report also showcases projects that are under way and already demonstrating potential for impact in areas such as self-testing for HIV, development of new insecticides to kill resistant mosquitoes that spread malaria, and creating access to affordable, generic versions of the world’s best HIV drugs in lower-income countries.

VIEW REPORT
English/French

Chile’s Marta Maurás to be interim chair of Unitaid Executive Board

Geneva — Marta Maurás Perez, Chile’s former ambassador and permanent representative to the United Nations and other international organizations in Geneva, has been invited to serve a term of up to one year as interim chair of the Unitaid Executive Board.

Ambassador Maurás will lead Unitaid’s 12-member decision-making body, which sets the organization’s objectives, monitors its projects and approves budgets. She served from 2014-16 as the board’s vice-chair.

“Unitaid’s invaluable mission as an accelerator of health innovation aims to ensure that all people can access the best that science and technology can offer to safeguard their lives and wellbeing,” said Ambassador Maurás.

Ambassador Maurás is a sociologist, international consultant and lecturer on children’s rights, gender equity, human rights, social policy and international relations, and an expert in multilateral affairs.

During a long and varied international career she has held posts including director for economic and social affairs under former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, as well as chief of cabinet to the deputy secretary-general. She was the first woman to serve as Chile’s Ambassador to the United Nations.

She has also held numerous senior positions with UNICEF, working in Latin America and the Caribbean, New York, Swaziland, Mozambique and Pakistan.  She organized UNICEF’s work extending basic health services to women and children in conflict zones and emergency situations. In the course of her work, she took part in negotiations that led to the liberation of 15 teenage girls abducted by the ELN rebel group in Colombia.