Industry, Academia and Government Partnership through the Global Health Innovative Technology Fund (GHIT)

Abstract

In developing countries, many people are unable to access basic healthcare services, resulting in many avoidable deaths and/or disabilities. The United Nations adopted the Millennium Development Goals in order to resolve this problem, and Japan has been contributing greatly to the achievement of these goals. In this context, in 2013 the Government of Japan proposed its Strategy on Global Health Diplomacy, and since then has been promoting Universal Health Coverage. Since the beginning of the 21st century, the particular importance of addressing neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) has been stressed by the international community. Nevertheless, of the 1 billion people world-wide who are currently living with NTDs, about three-fourths of these are living in poverty, and of these, nearly 65% are unable to acquire or access drugs for the prevention and treatment of these diseases. Under these circumstances, Japan decided to support the Global Health Innovative Technology (GHIT) Fund in order to support the research and development of drugs for people in developing countries, as well as the manufacture, supply and administration of these drugs. Over the last two years, the GHIT Fund has been supporting the research and development of five new candidate drugs for three NTDs (Chagas disease, leishmaniasis and malaria). Japan also hopes to stimulate domestic pharmaceutical industries in developing countries, as well as to increase international cooperation through various activities such the utilization of our capacity to research and develop new drugs.