MO

Ming Ong

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Interesting work, and some smart/decisive decision-making in terms of methodology. There is a trade-off in the effort required to map and data mine funding streams exhaustively, and what you have done makes a lot of sense.

Have you considered spot comparisons of the data included here against existing R&D funding repositories like Policy Cures Research's G-FINDER or NIH World RePORT? (disclosure that I used to work at PCR). For purely product-related R&D expenditure, I think, it supports your approach in that there are only a few funders not already identified in your dataset (Fundació La Caixa and Michael & Susan Dell Foundation of note). I do think there is less meaning in trying to reconcile funding estimates, and more important in identifying the relationships and approximate/relative quantum of funding.

An additional lens of analysis would be to try to map philanthropic biosecurity recipients and sources/magnitude of funding towards these organizations - illustrating to potential funders where resources might be allocated in the philanthropic biosecurity space.

FWIW, the WH after some delay put out a policy position on the Ugandan legislation, with specific language around PEPFAR.

The existing and current efforts are substantial, no doubt, but in a relative sense, AMR is neglected. Relative to the global burden of disease and expenditure on R&D, or relative to the projected costs of mitigation.

I think that the proposal identifies some interesting potential areas of work. A couple of unsolicited thoughts:

  • In addition to developing generalized plans and associated SOPs, it may be important in phase I to develop assessment tools to identify gaps, and map the existing industry and FDA minimum standards and practices (I think this is referred to within the theory of change)
  • Globally-relevant partner stakeholders that immediately come to mind are IFPMA and PhRMA 
  • Finding opportunities to improve FDA regulatory avenues is another downstream piece of work
  • Is the scope of work, at least initially, focused on US and European pharmaceutical infrastructure?