Neglected infectious diseases: Are push and pull incentive mechanisms suitable for promoting drug development research?

Abstract

Infectious diseases are among the main causes of death and disability in developing countries, and they are a major reason for the health disparity between rich and poor countries. One of the reasons for this public health tragedy is a lack of lifesaving essential medicines, which either do not exist or badly need improvements. In this article, we analyse which of the push and pull mechanisms proposed in the recent literature may serve to promote research into neglected infectious diseases. A combination of push programmes that subsidise research inputs through direct funding and pull programmes that reward research output rather than research input may be the appropriate strategy to stimulate research into neglected diseases. On the one hand, early-stage (basic) research should be supported through push mechanisms, such as research grants or publicly financed research institutions. On the other hand, pull mechanisms, such as prize funds that link reward payments to the health impacts of effective medicines, have the potential to stimulate research into neglected diseases.

Approval status and evidence for WHO essential medicines for children in the United States, United Kingdom, and Japan: a cross-sectional study

“…Incentives are imperative for them to develop medicines for NIDs [33, 34] because the market potential is quite low and external funding has been reduced [35]. A combination of push and pull incentive mechanisms [34] has been proposed as being suitable to promote clinical development for NIDs.…”

“…Incentives are imperative for them to develop medicines for NIDs [33, 34] because the market potential is quite low and external funding has been reduced [35]. A combination of push and pull incentive mechanisms [34] has been proposed as being suitable to promote clinical development for NIDs. Push mechanisms, such as research grants or publicly financed institutions, support basic research whereas pull mechanisms, such as priority review vouchers or extension of the medicine’s exclusivity period [33], have the potential to stimulate research and development of medicines for NIDs.…”

Commercialization of new biotechnology: a systematic review of 16 commercial case studies in a novel manufacturing sector

“…The existence of a private sector 'funding gap' for biotech companies in recent years has been discussed (Klausner, 2005;Mueller-Langer, 2013). Although several of the companies included here were successful in attracting venture capital during boom years, most molecular pharming business models did not possess significant assets against which new bank loaning could be secured, and did not offer high enough returns to attract VC capital in the more conservative years following the dot.com crash.…”

A re‐evaluation of the framework for the protection of patents, women’s health in Nigeria and the issue of accessing pharmaceutical innovation in Africa: Designing strategies for medicines

“…A pronounced area where the patent‐as‐incentive argument has failed to secure or facilitate innovation is in the area of R&D of diseases predominant in developing countries (Malpani, Heineke, & Kamal‐Yanni, , p. 6; Mueller‐Langer, , 186;Torreele, Usdin, & Chirac, ) . Even where treatments were initially researched and produced, there is the still the issue of the availability of appropriate new drugs to treat infectious diseases due to increasing resistance to existing treatments (Laxminarayan et al, , pp.…”