Despite important health advances associated with vaccine innovation, barriers to equitable and  sustained  global  access  remain.  As  the  global  community  strives  to  address  those barriers,  the  authors  warn  against  interventions  that  fail  to  reconcile  the  needs  of  both access and innovation.   
 
According  to  the  authors,  accelerating  vaccine  access  and  innovation,  especially  in  the developing  world,  requires  a  mix  of  “push  and  pull”  mechanisms.  Examples  of  “push” mechanisms  that  stimulate  R&D  are  grants  and  investment  tax  credits,  while  “pull” mechanisms can include donor guarantees of vaccine purchases and government programs to promote vaccine uptake through increased awareness of vaccines' health benefits.        
“Global  health  stakeholders  share  responsibility  for  achieving  the  goals  of  the  Decade  of Vaccines,"  says  Eduardo  Pisani,  IFPMA  Director  General.  “This  report  applies  industry learnings  and  expertise  that  contributed  to  several  past  health  successes  such  as dramatically  reduced  measles-related  deaths  and  eradication  of  smallpox.  With  greater public  awareness  and  access  to  innovative  vaccines,  great  strides  can  be  made  toward preventing other leading communicable and non-communicable diseases.” 
 
“These innovative approaches to achieving equitable and sustained global access to high quality, safe and effective vaccines can potentially save millions of lives, dramatically enhance economic productivity, and reduce under-five mortality,” said Jim Greenwood, BIO’s President and CEO. 
 
The paper, 'Delivering the promise of the Decade of Vaccines: opportunities and challenges in the development of high quality new vaccines,’ can be viewed at: Vaccine report. Also IFPMA and BIO developed two infographics - Vaccine R&D and  Innovative Vaccines Companies and the Decade of Vaccines - as useful resources.

The four main NCDs— cardiovascular diseases, cancer, chronic respiratory diseases and diabetes — kill three in five people worldwide, with 80 percent of NCD-related deaths occurring in low- and middle-income countries.

Because 50 percent of NCDs are avoidable, the IFPMA-IFRC partnership enhances efforts by both organizations to combat NCDs worldwide and support IFRC community interventions to reduce the impact of these diseases locally. Since releasing its Framework for Action on NCDs in 2011, IFPMA has delivered a series of research projects and health education initiatives to identify new ways to help people fight NCDs.

“By leveraging IFRC’s and IFPMA’s shared goal of fighting NCDs, this novel partnership brings synergy and creativity to fighting these diseases globally," says Eduardo Pisani, IFPMA Director General.

One of IFRC’s core strengths lies in community volunteers’ ability to tackle the underlying social, behavioral and environmental factors that determine good health through their on-the-ground work. “Changing behaviors by eliminating shared risk factors can save lives. Red Cross Red Crescent volunteers, going door-to-door in their communities play a vital role in promoting healthy lifestyles,” says Bekele Geleta, IFRC Secretary General. “But no one single player from the public or private sector working in silo can tackle the NCDs challenges. Fighting NCDs requires multi-stakeholders solutions.”

The International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers & Associations (IFPMA) today launches a new report on Incremental Innovation: Adapting to Patient Needs. The report emphasizes the importance of incremental innovation in improving medicines, explaining its scientific rationale, its medical value, and the economic incentives needed for its development. In highlighting the important role of patents in stimulating research on improved medicines, the report is also relevant to the discussions on patents and health currently taking place at the 19 th session of the WIPO Standing Committee on the Law of Patents (SCP).

Incremental innovation widens treatment options available to healthcare providers and adapts medicines better to patients’ needs. This process is marked by expanding the number of medicines within a therapeutic class, increasing the number of available dosing options, discovering new physiological interactions, and improving other properties of existing medicines. Such innovations often require as much research and development (R&D) and clinical trial investments as first-in-class medicines.

“Evidence-based discussions are key to advancing global health,” says IFPMA Director General Eduardo Pisani. “This publication provides facts and tangible examples to illustrate how biopharmaceutical innovation benefits patients and dispel the misperception that incremental medicines are trivial.”

There are countless examples of the significant public health impact of incremental innovation. R&D efforts based on existing medicines have led to wide-ranging therapeutic improvements, such as a new use for an antifungal medicine’s metabolite to treat Chagas disease, a neglected tropical disease affecting nearly 10 million people. Improved health outcomes have also been achieved by reducing the antimalarial dosing of ASAQ TM from eight to two tablets daily. A case study cited in the report highlights an improved treatment of hepatitis C, which has boosted cure rates from 38% to 54%.

“Medical innovation has brought dramatic improvements in healthcare during the last several decades, but innovation, especially when related to health, is a step-by-step process” says Eduardo Pisani. “If we are going to effectively address non-communicable diseases like cancer, heart disease and diabetes, research must continually build on these learnings.”

• An increasing number of governments (including China, India, Brazil, Russia and Nigeria) has, through their actions, recognized the need for effective measures against medicines falsification, which involves deliberately misrepresenting products’ origins and circumventing regulatory controls designed to assure treatment safety and effectiveness.
• The World Health Organization is uniquely placed to add value to governments' efforts to protect against all forms of pharmaceutical crime, along with those of local regulators and other national and international agencies. More investment is needed to not only quantify medicines falsification but to provide early warning of potentially hazardous products as soon as they are detected in legitimate supply chains.
• All relevant stakeholders should be able and willing to participate in appropriate preventive activities at all levels. The new UCL/Matrix analysis emphasizes the need for more collaborative action between all stakeholders involved in better medicines use. At worst, unresolved disputes between vested interests may cost lives which responsible global action could have saved.

In 2010 the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations (IFPMA) developed Ten Principles on Counterfeit Medicines to help raise awareness and understanding of this global health issue. This document and the full UCL/Matrix report are available at: Ten Principles and UCL/Matrix Report .