Grand Challenges in Global Health

Can Bill Gates foundation and its partners successfully address innovation bottlenecks in global health?

By: Shane P. McQuade, MBA, Hopkins Biotech Network

What are they?

The Grand Challenges in Global Health (GCGH) is an initiative launched in 2003 to reduce the imbalance and inequality of quality health care research between developed and developing regions of the world. Only a small fraction of medical research focuses on health problems that affect the poorest people in the world. Specifically, of the $70 billion dollars spent annually on medical R&D, only 10% focuses on diseases of the developing world. The overarching goal and purpose of the GCGH is to accurately identify these neglected research areas and allocate funds to those areas appropriately. The business model for GCGH is based upon the grand challenges initiative launched in the field of mathematics over 100 years ago by pioneering mathematician, David Hilbert.

The Players

Scientific researchers, clinicians and policy makers alike have come together to formulate 14 global public health goals to specifically address "bottlenecks" that hinder advancement in such areas as: HIV vaccine development, health care inequality, clean water access and control of infectious diseases. Rather than directly cite HIV, malaria or infant mortality as a challenge to address (as most Public-Private Partnerships do), GCGH attempts to identify operational roadblocks or “innovation bottlenecks” that prevent such PPP's from reaching these goals. Attention and funding is given to those innovative breakthroughs that can best overcome these roadblocks. GCGH aims to improve operational efficiency of organizations already addressing global health challenges such as nutrition, insect vector control, vaccine development, global health metrics and drug resistance.

The major partners of the GCGH are: the Bill and Belinda Gates Foundation, the Canadian Institute of Health Research, the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health and the Welcome Trust. Select scientists and researchers play a key role in this public-private partnership by sitting either on an executive committee or a scientific board. When the GCGH was first launched in 2003, the program attracted over 1,500 survey responses on what grand challenges were the most pressing, from almost 10,000 scientists in 75 different countries. Scientists on the GCGH executive committee and scientific board have the important role of deciding which pathway bottlenecks to address first and what innovative research to fund to help overcome those roadblocks.

Types of Projects

In 2005, GCGH scientists selected 43 of the 1,500 projects to pursue. GCGH projects are categorized as either “technology” or “disease” projects. Disease projects address operational bottlenecks in the development of drugs for specific diseases. Conversely, technology-based projects focus on such areas as: cheaper point-of-care field diagnostics, beta carotene, vitamin E, Zn and Fe enriched rice and needle-free nano-particle aerosol vaccines. Improving the thermo-stability of drugs and use of point-of-care diagnostics in Indo-China were two of GCGH’s recent technology project successes. This region has seen an explosive growth in HIV/AIDS infection rate since the 1980’s. Improvements in HIV therapy development and deployment are just two examples of how the GCGH will play a vital role in addressing our future global public health challenges.

How to learn more 

Visit www.grandchallenges.org for current project information, conference calendar and grant opportunities.