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Center for Global Health R&D Policy Assessment Launches New Website

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6 July, 2010

Hundreds of millions of people are affected by “diseases of the poor”, such as African sleeping sickness, Leishmaniasis, and Chagas disease, as well as better known killers like Malaria and Tuberculosis. Yet there are far too few drugs, vaccines, and diagnostic tests to address these health challenges.

Connected Expert(s): 
Aarthi Rao
Connected Expert(s): 
Amrita Palriwala
Connected Expert(s): 
Kimberly Manno Reott
Connected Expert(s): 
Robert Hecht
Connected Project(s): 
Assessing Innovations in Global Health R&D Policy and Financing
Funder: 
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
http://healthresearchpolicy.org

R4D’s Affinity MacroFinance receives top honors at international finance competition

in
8 March, 2010

An initiative co-sponsored by the Results for Development Institute (R4D) and the Corporación Andina de Fomento (CAF) has won top honors at the Marketplace on Innovative Financial Solutions for Development, a competition hosted by the Agence Française de Développement (AFD), the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and the World Bank.

Connected Expert(s): 
David de Ferranti
Connected Expert(s): 
David Stevens
Funder: 
Agence Française de Développement
Funder: 
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
Funder: 
The World Bank
Attached File(s): 
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Affinity MacroFinance 2016_The Year In Review.pdf

R4D launches new project to assess proposals for innovative global health R&D policy

in
4 January, 2010

Millions of people are affected by so-called “diseases of the poor” in low and middle income countries. However, there are inadequate drugs, vaccines, diagnostics, and other resources to address these health challenges. Recently, a number of innovative ideas have emerged on how to address this gap, through the creation of new funding streams, incentives for scientists and biopharma companies, and changes in intellectual property arrangements and in regulatory institutions and practices.

Connected Expert(s): 
Amrita Palriwala
Connected Expert(s): 
Robert Hecht
Connected Project(s): 
Assessing Innovations in Global Health R&D Policy and Financing
Funder: 
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

Assessing Innovations in Global Health R&D Policy and Financing

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R4D is leading the formation of an assessment center for innovative global health R&D policy and finance proposals. The focus is on proposed new ideas aimed at accelerating the development of drugs and other health technologies for neglected diseases. Visit www.healthresearchpolicy.org to learn more.

The Center for Global Health R&D Policy Assessment website is now live.

Visit www.healthresearchpolicy.org to read the latest blogs and learn more about current assessments. Additionally, read below for more details on this project.

Main Contact: 
Amrita Palriwala
Website: 
http://www.healthresearchpolicy.org
Funder: 
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
Status: 
Active
Staff Associated with Project: 
Aarthi Rao
Amrita Palriwala
Kimberly Manno Reott
Robert Hecht

Improving Financing for Health R&D

in
14 July, 2009

Health R&D financing remains inadequate -- R4D offers an evaluation of the most promising new ideas and a framework for evaluating them in the July/August 2009 Health Affairs issue.

Connected Expert(s): 
Amrita Palriwala
Connected Expert(s): 
Robert Hecht
Connected Project(s): 
Innovative Financing for Global Health R&D

The Rockefeller Foundation

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The Rockefeller Foundation funds the now completed Role of the Private Sector in Health Systems Project and the ongoing Transforming Health Systems Initiative (THS) and Improving Stewardship of Health Services in Developing Countries Project.

Website: 
http://www.rockfound.org

Innovative Financing for Global Health R&D

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R4D is identifying innovative approaches to financing global health R&D that reduce barriers and risk in the development of new health technologies. New and improved products are needed to reduce the burden of disease, but creating these products requires difficult long-term scientific efforts, with uncertain return on investment.

New and improved vaccines and drugs are urgently needed to reduce the burden of suffering and loss from diseases such as AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria in developing countries. But creating these new health products requires extremely difficult long-term scientific efforts, and the markets for these kinds of life-saving vaccines and drugs are both uncertain and may not be very lucrative. Because of these barriers and risks, many scientific organizations and biopharmaceutical companies shy away from investing in these areas.

Main Contact: 
Robert Hecht
Duration: 
April, 2008 - December, 2012
Funder: 
International AIDS Vaccine Initiative
Status: 
Active
Staff Associated with Project: 
Aarthi Rao
Amrita Palriwala
Robert Hecht

Transforming Health Systems Initiative (THS)

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Transforming Health Systems is an initiative of the Rockefeller Foundation that seeks to strengthen health systems by supporting global level analysis of policies that drive a global health systems agenda and country level work to implement catalytic demonstrations of health systems transformation. 

Until recently, global health has focused on disease- and population-specific programs while health systems have been neglected. The insufficient attention paid to the transformation of health systems and to the capacity development needed for high-performing health systems in developing countries has resulted in weakened stewardship, dysfunctional service delivery, and inequitable financing.

Main Contact: 
Donika Dimovska
Website: 
http://www.rockfound.org
Duration: 
January, 2009 - January, 2013
Funder: 
The Rockefeller Foundation
Status: 
Active
Staff Associated with Project: 
Donika Dimovska
Gina Lagomarsino
Sapna Singh Kundra
Stephanie Sealy
Attached File(s): 
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Public Stewardship of Private Providers in Mixed Health Systems.pdf
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Innovative Pro-Poor Healthcare Financing and Delivery Models.pdf

Innovative Financing for Global Health: Tools for Analyzing the Options

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Funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation as part of the Brookings Institution's two year Global Health Financing Initiative, this working paper examines the options for financing global health and proposes a framework to help guide aid decisions.

Many tools exist for financing global health aid.  How should governments and donors examine and prioritize the options?  Funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation as part of the Brookings Institution's two year Global Health Financing Initiative, the working paper examines these options and proposes a framework to help guide aid decisions.

Publication & Resource Type: 
Working Papers
Year Published: 
2008
Main Contact: 
David de Ferranti
R4D Author(s): 
David de Ferranti
R4D Author(s): 
Gina Lagomarsino
Author(s): 
Charles Griffin, Maria-Luisa Escobar, Amanda Glassman
Funder(s): 
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
Connected Project: 
Innovative Financing for Global Health R&D
Connected Project: 
The Health Financing Task Force
Link to Publication-Resource: 
http://www.brookings.edu/papers/2008/08_global_health_de_ferranti.aspx

Robert Hecht

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Principal and Managing Director
Email: 
rhecht@resultsfordevelopment.org
Phone: 
+1.202.470.5729

Robert Hecht is a Principal and Managing Director at R4D, with extensive background in health and development policy. His current portfolio covers AIDS costs and financing, immunization policy, and innovative approaches to global health R&D.

Robert Hecht joined Results for Development in April 2008, and is currently managing a growing portfolio of projects analyzing policy barriers and solutions related to AIDS and health financing and improving R&D and access to new health technologies in developing countries.

Before coming to Results for Development, he spent four years as vice president for Policy and Advocacy at the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative. Prior to this, he had a 20 year tenure at the World Bank, where he occupied a number of senior posts including manager of the Bank's central unit for Health, Nutrition, and Population, with oversight for global strategies, knowledge, technical services, and partnerships; chief of operations for the Human Development Network; principal economist in the Latin America region, and member of the core team and a lead author of the 1993 World Development Report, "Investing in Health." From 1987 to 1996, he was responsible for World Bank sponsored studies and projects in health in Africa and Latin America, most notably in Zimbabwe and Argentina.

He served as a director of the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) from 1998 to 2001, where he managed technical units based in South Africa, Cote d'Ivoire, and Thailand, as well as in Geneva. He led UNAIDS efforts to portray AIDS as a development and poverty issue impacting a wide range of social and economic goals, and published a number of papers advancing this view.

He is the author of more than 30 articles and other publications. He received his undergraduate degree from Yale and his doctorate from Cambridge University.

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