New Opportunities

Many promising drug candidates are discarded for lack of a viable market. OneWorld Health embraces the opportunity and responsibility of bringing these new medicines to light.

A Nonprofit Model For Drug Development

OneWorld Health was founded to address the wide gulf between human need, scientific effort and the marketplace. We created a nonprofit model to achieve outcomes that would otherwise not be achievable. And we do so in a spirit of partnership and collaboration that capitalizes on the specific talents and resources that each participant can bring to this essential scientific endeavor.

OneWorld Health catalyzes new drug development by creating unique opportunities:

For industry: The pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries are the world’s greatest sources of new drug leads. New drug development cannot succeed without the participation of industry, and OneWorld Health has created a model that benefits industry and enhances their commitment to global health. With its nonprofit model, OneWorld Health:

• Serves as a global development partner, taking responsibility for markets in the least developed countries (dual market opportunities).
  
• Obtains resources from private foundations and governments to fund the development costs of taking a new drug through to market in the developing world. Provides international regulatory expertise to increase the number of countries in which an important new drug is marketed.
• Provides a tax deduction for the projected future value of donated intellectual property such as licenses and patents [as a US 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation].
• Accepts responsibility for studying challenging patient subpopulations that would otherwise not be studied (e.g., infants and pregnant women)
• Creates a viable path for off-patent drugs which otherwise would not be pursued for any new uses.

For government and academia: University and government researchers produce exciting new leads for tropical infectious disease, only to be discouraged by the lack of outlets to advance their research into development. OneWorld Health provides the bridge between novel bench science and its conversion to applications for the developing world. We advocate to government and foundation funders in support of specific basic research that will later become new drug development projects. Advisors to OneWorld Health include industry scientists who can advise academicians in translational science – such as high-throughput screening and lead optimization of potential new drugs. And OneWorld Health can serve as a bridge between academia and industry, advocating for access to key industry resources, such as chemical libraries or specific assay reagents.

For developing world partners: The developing world is not only a beneficiary, but also a tremendous resource that is often disregarded in new drug development. We work with developing country partners in clinical trials, pharmaceutical manufacturing, and distribution of new medicines for neglected diseases. We are advocates for increased funding for academic laboratories in the developing world and we build capacity by training health care workers and scientists in clinical drug development through each of our projects. We actively transfer knowledge and technology to improve local efforts to address disease threats. All of this work simultaneously fosters new avenues of economic development.