Geneva, 11 December 2013 — The annual G-FINDER survey reports on funding for neglected diseases. The report looks at the levels of public, private and industry financing levels for some of the world's most neglected diseases.
Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) responds to the survey and report with the below quote:
"The G-FINDER report has shown – once again – that levels of private funding for the world’s most neglected diseases remains very low. The lack of private funding for neglected diseases is a clear indication of the failure of the current R&D model to finance and address the needs of the diseases that principally affect the world’s poor. Unfortunately the report compares R&D funding between neglected diseases instead of looking at the whole picture, which only serves to underline the fundamental imbalances within our R&D system which has led to all 31 diseases being systematically underfunded.
Let's not forget that, in 2012, barely a third of the recommended $2 billion annual investment needed for TB R&D was funded. We should not narrow our outlook to fight for funding between neglected diseases, rather than addressing the overarching cause of neglect - a defunct R&D system that prioritises R&D investments according to profitability not health needs; we should not accept this narrowing of perspective.
A stop-gap measure isn’t going fix the issues with R&D funding that need to be addressed; what we urgently need is a complete overhaul of the system and way of thinking for R&D financing. We need to see new and different incentives for patient needs-driven innovation beyond the promise of monopolies and high pricing in lucrative markets."
- Katy Athersuch, Medical Innovation and Policy Advisor, Médecins Sans Frontières Access Campaign