China to establish international r&d centre for global health
Partnership joins public and private sectors to develop new treatments for TB, malaria and HIV/AIDS
The International Scientific Exchange Foundation of China (ISEFC), a technical public foundation dedicated to promoting and advancing scientific development, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Global Alliance for TB Drug Development (TB Alliance), to establish the Global Health R&D Center of China (GHRC), which will focus on developing new treatments for diseases such as tuberculosis, malaria, and HIV/AIDS.
Hui Yongzheng, chairman of the ISEFC Committee, said the GHRC will be a ‘centre of excellence’, which can harness international innovation and China’s growing research and development capabilities to meet the public health needs of the Chinese people and the rest of the world.
The GHRC will be the first Chinese not-for-profit Product Development Partnership (PDP), facilitating collaboration between public and private entities, including the Chinese government, pharmaceutical companies, academic institutions, and others, in the pursuit of new treatments to address neglected diseases and improve global health.
‘The vision of the GHRC is to focus on translational medicine for public health and bridge the innovation gap that currently exists into new treatments and cures,’ said Geng Jianyue, secretary-general assistant of ISEFC.
TB kills nearly two million people each year and China has the second-highest prevalence of TB in the world. Each year, 1.3 million patients develop active TB in China and 150,000 people die from it.
‘We are excited to partner ISEFC in this historic endeavour and make available promising technology for TB,’ said Mel Spigelman, president and ceo of the TB Alliance, a global PDP that is supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and several governments, and which has a history of collaboration with partners in China and around the world.
‘The TB Alliance has developed the largest pipeline of potential new TB drugs in the world and the creation of the GHRC will help to ensure that these promising new therapies will be developed and available to TB patients in China,’ Spigelman added.
There have been no new TB drugs in nearly 50 years, and the current treatment is inadequate to tackle today’s complex epidemic.
