Number Of Public-private Partnerships Research Articles

Talking Ethics Early in Health Data Public Private Partnerships

Data access and data sharing are vital to advance medicine. A growing number of public private partnerships are set up to facilitate data access and sharing, as private and public actors possess highly complementary health data sets and treatment development resources. However, the priorities and incentives of public and private organizations are frequently in conflict. This has complicated partnerships and sparked public concerns around ethical issues such as trust, justice or privacy—in turn raising an important problem in business and data ethics: how can ethical theory inform the practice of public and private partners to mitigate misaligned incentives, and ensure that they can deliver societally beneficial innovation? In this paper, we report on the development of the Swiss Personalized Health Network’s ethical guidelines for health data sharing in public private partnerships. We describe the process of identifying ethical issues and engaging core stakeholders to incorporate their practical reality on these issues. Our report highlights core ethical issues in health data public private partnerships and provides strategies for how to overcome these in the Swiss health data context. By agreeing on and formalizing ethical principles and practices at the beginning of a partnership, partners and society can benefit from a relationship built around a mutual commitment to ethical principles. We present this summary in the hope that it will contribute to the global data sharing dialogue.

Why We Lack in Basic Sanitation? An Assessment of Challenges in Ajmer and Solution Strategies

Purpose of the study: The paper attempts to find the answer to the question – Why do we lack in basic sanitation? What are the reasons for it? Paper introspects the challenges encountered in sanitation services for Ajmer district in Rajasthan. It identifies the key bottlenecks of the sanitation system to the ground realities of implementation for a non-metropolitan city. The article also outlines the way forward which is suggested to make the sanitation system in the city more available to all. Methodology: The paper is drawn on policy document analysis, urban sanitation policy and other Indian government promotional materials on urban sanitation, Indian municipalities, and a number of public-private partnerships. The paper reviews the extant literature on urban sanitation and thereafter examines challenges met in Ajmer district of Rajasthan. Main findings: It emphasizes the major challenges of access to sanitation, lack of private sector engagement, lack of regulation and standardization, treatment of wastewater and septage, low infrastructure, weak institutional framework etc. The Paper also proposes suggestions for meeting these challenges so that a proper system of sanitation may emerge. Applications of this study: This study will be useful for all those agencies who are involved with sanitation system governance. The paper contributes to the literature by addressing a neglected theme of investigating the challenges and their probable solution strategies about Ajmer district of Rajasthan. The study will provide background of various challenges faced in various cities in Indian perspectives and how they can be dealt by proposed suggestions. This study will be beneficial in the area of sanitation systems, urban governance, etc. Novelty/Originality of this study: This study is significant in highlighting the type of challenges and what could be possible solutions in Indian perspectives with special reference to Ajmer.

SMART CITY PARADIGM IN INDIA: GWALIOR A CASE STUDY

Purpose of the study: Paper introspects, the challenges encountered in the making of Gwalior city as Smart city. It compares the key bottlenecks of Smart City Mission as policy in urbanization landscape to the ground realities of implementation for a non -metropolitan city. The article also outlines the various way-forward which Gwalior city designed in its ambit for successful implementation of Smart city project.
 Methodology: Dealing with methodology, the paper has been drawn on policy documents analysis, city selection process, Indian Government promotional materials on smart city, several Indian Municipalities and a number of public-private partnerships
 Main Findings: It emphasizes the major challenges of debt financing, Institutional, market & business, community engagement, urban policy, land acquisition and quest for ideas, innovation in urban and IT landscape and desirable solutions. Paper emphasizes all these multiple challenges that were encountered and efforts which were made to meet the implementation of Smart and sustainable city for Gwalior citizens.
 Applications of this study: This study will be useful for all those agencies who are involved in transforming cities into smart cities. The study will provide a background of various challenges in regard to Indian smart city paradigm and how those can be dealt with. This study will help in the area of smart city, sustainability, urban governance, etc.
 Novelty/Originality of this study: This study explores how challenges can be met in Indian perspective with special reference to Gwalior.

Affordable innovation: future directions in pharmaceutical policy

In 2009, Jayadev and Stiglitz [1] proposed ‘two ideas’ to increase innovation and reduce pharmaceutical costs and prices. These were the use of value-based pricing and promoting public funding of clinical trials. Since then, NICE has tried and not yet succeeded to introduce value-based pricing, Persson and Jonsson [2] suggest that international reference pricing should cease, Gilead has made billions on the basis of exorbitant pricing of new products for hepatitis C, and prices for new products for cancer are causing concern even in the US [3]. At the same time, there has been considerable work on how to promote research and development to meet health needs in developing countries [4], the reported cost of drug development seems to continue to increase [5], the structure of the multinational industry has changed significantly [6], there are major area of market failure such as antibiotics, and investment in public-private partnerships to promote innovation continues to grow. Given this complex landscape, this abstract briefly reviews the current ideas and strategies to promote innovation in pharmaceutical development. It provides a review of some of the issues about pricing and affordability of new medicines, and some options for ensuring that innovation is affordable. These options are likely to require some significant changes in our current approaches to negotiating pharmaceutical prices with suppliers, increased global and regional collaboration as well as increased transparency about clinical effects that are relevant to patients, costs of research and development and explicit consideration of willingness to pay by different countries. The problem of declining innovation in the pharmaceutical industry has been well described [6]. Trouiller et al. summarised the problem in 2002 [7], showing how few molecules had been approved by the FDA that were of relevance to neglected tropical diseases. The Priority Medicines for Europe and the World Report in 2004 [8] was one response, to identify priority products for potential development by European pharma. The regulatory framework for orphan drugs in both the USA and Europe was another mechanism [9] and similarly, the push for paediatric medicines tried to use incentives (patent protection) as well as sanctions to encourage needed product development. In 2012, the report [4] by the Consultative Expert Working Group on Research and Development identified a group of proposals that they considered most likely to promote innovation in research for products relevant to low and middle income countries. These were: a ‘Global Framework’ on research and development, open approaches to research and development and innovation, pooled funds, direct grants to companies, milestone prizes and end prizes and patent pools. They made recommendations on how much they thought countries should contribute to financing research and development activities, and also suggested that the WHO should take a coordinating role, including a global health research and development observatory. Another example of promoting innovation may be the increasing number of public-private partnerships. There are the well-established entities, such as MMV and DNDi who have a portfolio of products for malaria and neglected tropical disease respectively. New products from both are on the market. Another venture, the Innovative Medicines Initiative is the biggest public-private partnership to date, and is also hoping to promote the development of innovative medicines.

Impact of Plant Variety Protection on Indian Seed Industry

This paper has examined the pattern of protection of plant varieties and the early impact of plant variety protection (PVP) on Indian seed industry. The results have shown a positive response by all the actors involved in seed provision, viz. public research institutes, private seed companies, and farmers in terms of participation in protection of varieties. To measure the concentration of private seed companies in PVP, Herfindahl–Hirschman Index was used which revealed that concentration has decreased over the years, with participation of more and more seed companies. The PVP applications for crops have also diversified with time, indicating that PVP is important for a large number of crops. The trends in exchange of germplasm, number of varieties released, breeder and quality seeds produced, and number of public-private partnerships, indicate the growth of Indian seed industry and its confidence in the PVP mechanism.

Schemas for the Design and Governance of Collaborative Innovation

As scientific and technological problems become more complex, governments, industry, universities and researchers have begun experimenting with multi-actor collaborations in order to bring down costs, avoid duplication of effort and increase efficacy. A number of public-private partnerships exist, each with its own governance structure and set of rules around intellectual property. While much anecdotal evidence exists concerning the functioning of these collaborations, there is, as noted by the OECD, a need for guidelines on how to construct and manage these partnerships. This paper meets this challenge by setting out two schemas through which to design, implement and monitor collaborations. The first schema is for relatively simple collaborations whereas the second allows actors to design more complex partnerships.

Preface: building trust in agricultural biotechnology partnerships

The 2011 famine in the Horn of Africa and the spectre of food price volatility have led to renewed interest in boosting local agricultural production in Africa. The surge in interest is occurring at a time when the impact of climate change on agriculture is becoming a central theme in policy discourse. These trends are inspiring the need to foster agricultural research as a way to raise productivity, diversify production and protect the environment [1]. It is widely held that long-term strategies to boost African agriculture will have to include the application of biotechnology. However, policy discussions on the role of biotechnology in African agriculture are marked by widespread distrust. The main sources of the distrust include concerns over the safety of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), fear of corporate control of the food sector, and uncertainty over the workings of publicprivate partnerships (PPPs). The collection of papers in this special issue sheds light on why establishing trust among business, government, research institutions and the public is central to efforts to introduce agricultural biotechnology. The authors of these papers draw from experiences in Burkina Faso, Egypt, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, and Uganda to provide lessons for building effective partnerships based on trust. In addition, the papers contain real-life examples that show which PPPs have worked well, what undermined their evolution, and how their lessons could be shared to inform policy decisions and practical actions. The papers are being published at a critical moment in the evolution of African agriculture. First, the continent is currently considering ways to become an important player in global agricultural production. The strategies being pursued by most countries in Africa include consideration of the role of agricultural biotechnology. By 2011, only three African countries (Burkina Faso, South Africa and Egypt) were commercially producing genetically modified (GM) crops. Recent decisions in Kenya to adopt a law that would approve the cultivation of GM crops, for example, were accompanied by extensive debates that underscored the importance of building trust in the technology. Second, discussions over the introduction of GM crops are occurring in the context of broader interest among African countries to put science and technology at the center of their development strategies. Much of this interest has been inspired by the dramatic benefits that mobile phones have brought to the continent. Two decades ago, mobile phones were viewed with the same suspicion and concerns over trust in related information technologies; such automation raised concerns over their implications for employment. The evolution of mobile technology in Africa now serves as a reference point in balancing between the benefits and risks of new technologies. These lessons are likely to lead to discussion on agricultural biotechnology. Third, there is an increase in the number of PPPs seeking to foster the adoption of agricultural biotechnology. Those involved in these partnerships are seeking ways by which they can address the general anxiety arising from uncertainty over the structure, performance and benefits of PPPs. These actors will find valuable lessons in these papers on how to address such concerns. These articles differ from much of the material available today in several important ways. First, they open the door for exploring the theoretical and practical implications of focusing on trust as a way to build confidence in new technologies. Second, they provide inspirational practical examples in each of the countries and institutions analyzed. Finally, they will be invaluable to a wider audience, including policy makers; donors; entrepreneurs; researchers; investors; and students of agricultural policy.