Medicinal Chemistry, Drug Discovery & Drug Delivery

Drug Discovery and Drug Delivery: Emerging Diseases

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The Forum recognized that in addition to humanitarian reasons for fighting infectious diseases in developing countries, have a self-interest in combating infectious diseases. Pathogens can spread far from where they first developed due to increases in trade, international tourism and climate change. Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) exemplified how an infectious disease may quickly transcend borders, triggering important economic ripple effects globally, even in countries with few cases.

Meeting the cost of scaling-up PDP investments needs to be accompanied by more accurate forecasting of demand for medicines required for neglected diseases, as this would reduce the risk to investors and potential innovators and could create stronger incentives to service these markets. Participants made it clear that many health issues in developing countries cannot and will not be solved by developments in health technologies alone. Nevertheless, such technologies are important and efforts are needed to create the innovation environment that will rapidly deliver new medicines for all types of disease.