The Hummingbird. Unitaid News – June 2019
Unitaid’s investment in tuberculosis hits record levels with new grant for diagnostic technologies
Geneva – The Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics (FIND) and Unitaid signed a US$ 14.5 million grant Thursday to deploy a powerful new technology in the diagnosis of drug-resistant tuberculosis.
The Seq&Treat project will pilot next-generation genome sequencing, an innovation that provides fast, accurate diagnosis of drug-resistant TB. Better diagnosis enables patients to get the right treatment earlier, and could help raise the world’s very low cure rate for the disease.
The technology also has the potential to be an effective weapon in the fight against drug-resistant superbugs, which develop when medicines are misused.
The new investment is part of a dramatic expansion in Unitaid’s TB portfolio, which has nearly doubled over the past few years and is on track to hit US$ 300 million in 2020.
“New technologies offer a phenomenal pathway to test and treat more people for tuberculosis, including drug-resistant TB, while strengthening health systems,” said Lelio Marmora, Unitaid’s executive director.
The three-year Seq&Treat project will be implemented in Brazil, China, Georgia, India and South Africa. FIND will work closely with civil society organizations in those countries to make communities familiar with the project and its aims, and to facilitate transition and scale-up. FIND will also leverage relationships with global civil society organizations to advocate for improved access to diagnostics.
In 2017, only a quarter of the estimated 558,000 people with drug-resistant TB started treatment, and less than 14 percent were cured.
Sequencing-based tests can produce results in 48 hours, a vast improvement over culture-based tests that require up to eight weeks. The technology could also yield large savings in treatment costs, because it enables clinicians to prescribe the right medicine to patients from the outset of their treatment.
Sequencing devices also support integrated approaches to health care; they can be used to diagnose multiple diseases at the same time, which can lead to a cure for more patients.
“Integrated approaches are a strategic priority for Unitaid and support the UN Sustainable Development Goals. With this type of project we are seeking to invest in products that impact health systems,” Unitaid Board Chair Marisol Touraine said.
Unitaid’s is the largest multilateral investor in TB research and development, a reflection of the organization’s commitment to confront the world’s leading infectious killer.
For more information: Carol MASCIOLA, masciolac@unitaid.who.int
Unitaid’s Board welcomes new leadership and acknowledges strong achievements
Seoul – The Unitaid Executive Board elected a new leadership, reflected on its midterm strategy review and discussed ways to increase impact until the end of its strategy in 2021 and beyond.
The Board’s 32nd meeting opened with remarks from Korean Vice-Minister Kim Ganglip of the Ministry of Health and Welfare and Deputy Minister for Multilateral and Global Affairs Kang Jeong-sik of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The Board thanked the outgoing Board Chair Ambassador Marta Maurás Pérez and Vice-Chair Ms. Sarah Boulton for their strategic guidance over the past years and elected its new leadership. The new Chair Ms. Marisol Touraine, former French Minister of Social Affairs, Health and Women’s Rights will lead Unitaid’s Board through an exciting new period. “The key to Unitaid’s future lies in facing up to new challenges in global health, with confidence in our capacity to rally partners around shared goals,” said Ms. Touraine. The Board also welcomed Ambassador Maria Louisa Escorel De Moraes as its new Vice-Chair. Ambassador Escorel is the Deputy Permanent Representative of Brazil to the UN and other international organizations in Geneva.
Adopting the midterm review of Unitaid’s 2017-2021 strategy, the board acknowledged that Unitaid is on track towards its mission to maximize the effectiveness of the global health response by catalyzing equitable access to better health products. The review confirmed that Unitaid’s investments support highly innovative health products such as medicines and diagnostic tools, which can save lives of millions of people and create greater impact for the global health response.
“Unitaid’s portfolio is robust and well aligned to global health priorities. Unitaid focuses on bringing highly effective innovations to those in need, which is critical to accelerate progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals,” Executive Director Lelio Marmora said.
The next Board meeting will take place in Geneva on 20-21 November.
Read the Executive Board’s Resolutions and Minutes
Read the Executive Board’s e-Resolutions
Republic of Korea renews its commitment to Unitaid to promote innovation in global health
Seoul – The Republic of Korea today reiterated its commitment to support Unitaid in fighting major diseases such as HIV/AIDS, hepatitis C, tuberculosis and malaria in lower-income countries.
The funding, a 25 percent increase to be provided over three years (2019-2021), will ensure access to health products such as high-quality drugs and diagnostics, objectives central to Unitaid’s mission.
“The Republic of Korea will continue to actively support Unitaid and its key strategy of promoting innovation in the global effort to achieve healthy and sustainable world,” said Oh Hyunjoo, director-general of development cooperation, Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
“The Republic of Korea has been an active partner of Unitaid since 2007,” said Ambassador Marta Maurás Pérez, Unitaid’s Executive Board chair. “I would like to thank the Ministry of Foreign Affairs both for the financial commitment that has been made today and for their positive contribution and engagement with us.”
Unitaid Executive Director Lelio Marmora and Oh Hyunjoo signed the memorandum of understanding outlining the country’s support following a discussion with Lee Tae-ho, second vice minister of foreign affairs, and Jeong Eun-kyeong, director of Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on creating synergies between Unitaid’s activities and South Korea’s international development goals.
Present at the signing were Ambassador Marta Maurás Pérez, Unitaid’s Executive Board chair, and Ms. Marisol Touraine, the incoming chair for the period 2019-2022.
The support of South Korea will be used to promote innovation, improve equitable access to better health products and to work toward scale-up of Unitaid global health projects.
UNICEF and Unitaid join forces to improve the health of children, adolescents and mothers
Geneva – Unitaid and UNICEF will collaborate to save the lives of more children, adolescents and mothers, an agreement formalized by a memorandum of understanding signed today.
With decades of experience fighting the biggest diseases threatening children under five, adolescent girls and young women, the newly signed memorandum will align the complementary efforts of the organizations to end malaria, pneumonia, HIV, tuberculosis and cervical cancer, to expand access to innovative point-of-care diagnostics, and to improve fever management in children.
“Unitaid and UNICEF have worked together on a number of lifesaving projects. Formalizing our collaboration will make our response stronger, faster and more effective,” Unitaid Executive Director Lelio Marmora said.
Marmora and Fore signed the agreement.
“Partnership and innovation have been the hallmark of the UNICEF-Unitaid partnership over many years. This new memorandum builds on this legacy, bringing together our resources, expertise and products to improve health outcomes in the communities–and for the children–who need it most,” UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta H. Fore said.
By teaming up in the fight against major disease killers in children, adolescents and mothers, Unitaid and UNICEF will work towards the Sustainable Development Goals and universal health coverage for a better tomorrow.
Unitaid and Japan move to align their efforts against tuberculosis
Tokyo — Unitaid Executive Director Lelio Marmora and Parliamentary Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs of Japan Kenji Yamada met today to discuss a new alignment between Japan’s global health priorities and Unitaid’s work in fighting tuberculosis.
The support of Japan will allow Unitaid to carry out two clinical trials whose data will inform World Health Organization (WHO) policy on shorter, better, less-expensive treatments for multidrug-resistant tuberculosis.
Both trials will evaluate regimens that feature delamanid, manufactured by Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. The trials, to be completed in 2022, will involve 1,250 patients in South Africa, Lesotho, Peru, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan and India.
“Japan plays a vital role in accelerating innovation and universal health coverage,” Mr. Marmora said. “The country’s support is fundamental to Unitaid’s mission to expand access to reliable treatments, as part of the global response.”
Parliamentary Vice-Minister Yamada stressed that Japan was looking forward to contributing further to global health, and to greater cooperation with Unitaid.
Unitaid is an organization hosted by WHO that accelerates innovation to bring the power of new medical discoveries to the people who most need them.
Through time-limited investments, Unitaid identifies the health innovations with the most potential to alleviate the burden of major diseases and sets the stage for their large-scale introduction by governments and partners such as PEPFAR, the Global Fund and WHO.
The United Nations (UN) and WHO have made eliminating TB a target.
Through its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the UN aims to eliminate TB by 2030, and WHO’s End TB Strategy has defined 2035 as its deadline.
Japan has acted to ensure that these targets are met; in September 2018, Japan was co-leader of the UN General Assembly high-level meeting on TB.
Such leadership and commitment are crucial to achieving these bold targets, and strong investment is needed to develop new tools in prevention, diagnostics and treatment.
Through its support of the Tokyo-based Global Health Innovative Technology Fund (GHIT), Japan is investing in the development of new medicines to combat the rise of drug-resistant strains of TB.
Japan is scheduled to host a meeting of Group of 20 (G20) health ministers on global health priorities in Okayama on 19-20 October. The meeting is one in a series Japan will host in 2019 in its capacity as G20 chair and includes a summit of leaders in Osaka at the end of June.
The Hummingbird. Unitaid News – March 2019
New study is a breakthrough for preventing tuberculosis in people living with HIV
Geneva – A Unitaid-funded study has found that 3HP, a new, shorter preventive therapy for tuberculosis, is safe for people who also take the HIV drug dolutegravir. The results mark a critical milestone for countries and funding partners seeking to expand preventive TB therapy.
“These are the results we have all been waiting for,” Unitaid Executive Director Lelio Marmora said. “The evidence that 3HP is safe to use with dolutegravir, today’s most advanced HIV treatment, is critical for the scale up of short-course preventive therapy for TB. We now need to focus on affordable pricing for access.”
TB kills some 340,000 people living with HIV every year and accounts for about a third of HIV-related deaths. TB preventive therapy protects people already infected with TB bacteria from falling ill with the active disease and shields those at risk of exposure. A third of the world’s population is infected with latent TB, and HIV infection makes them much more likely to develop active TB.
The new therapy, a rifapentine-based regimen known as 3HP, requires only once-weekly treatment for 12 weeks, compared to the 6-to-36 month daily regimen required under the older standard of care, isoniazid preventive therapy (IPT). Patients are more likely to complete shorter treatments.
The study was carried out in South Africa by Unitaid grantee Aurum Institute and the Johns Hopkins University Center for TB Research as part of the IMPAACT4TB project.
Unitaid is investing US$ 59 million in the Aurum-led IMPAACT4TB (2017-2021) project, which seeks to establish rifapentine-based preventative regimens as affordable, quality-assured, less-toxic therapies suitable for wide introduction in countries most affected by TB.
The study also found that people who take 3HP do not require a higher dose of dolutegravir, and that all viral loads were suppressed while the patients were taking 3HP.
The findings were presented today in Seattle at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI).
“Latent TB infection is the reservoir from which active cases develop, which in turn fuels transmission of the disease,” said Aurum Institute Group CEO Gavin Churchyard. “Scaling up new, safer, shorter prevention therapies, such as 3HP, is key to ending the TB epidemic.”
Today’s results allow IMPAACT4TB to move forward with activities to improve the affordability and feasibility of TB prevention using 3HP. This work is expected to pave the way for the scale-up of 3HP by key funders of TB prevention interventions, including the Global Fund, PEPFAR and Stop TB Partnership.
“The news that 3HP is safe for people being treated with DTG opens the door to healthy, productive lives for a vast number of people who would otherwise die of tuberculosis,” said Dr Tereza Kasaeva, Director of the Global Tuberculosis Programme at WHO. “With scale-up as recommended by WHO’s new guidelines on latent TB infection, 3HP has enormous potential as a tool to help achieve the target of reaching 30 million people with TB preventive treatment by 2022, as outlined in the political declaration of the first UN High Level Meeting on TB in September 2018.”
The project is being implemented in the following countries: Brazil, Ghana, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, South Africa, India, Cambodia and Indonesia.
IMPAACT4TB stands for the full project name: Increasing Market and Public health outcomes through scaling up Affordable Access models of short Course preventive therapy for TB.