Final Report Summary - PHARMASECURITY (Pharmaceuticals and Security: The Role of Public-Private Collaborations in Strengthening Global Health Security)
Populations are increasingly threatened by cross-border health threats – from HIV/AIDS, SARS, H5N1, H1N1, MERS, Ebola and Zika. In order to better protect populations against such deadly disease outbreaks, governments are trying to acquire new pharmaceutical defenses – or ‘medical countermeasures’ – like medicines, vaccines, anti-toxins, and so forth. Their political aspiration is to have an array of such ‘medical countermeasures’ readily available for distribution to the population in advance of the next outbreak. If the outbreak is caused by a new disease, then governments also want to have the capability to rapidly develop new medical countermeasures in response. Yet governments can only procure such medical countermeasures by working much more closely with the pharmaceutical industry. The cooperation of industry is critical for ensuring that new drugs and vaccines are developed, that they are available in sufficient quantities, that they are in the places where they are needed, and that they can be made safely available at the right time. This project therefore explored how governments, international institutions, and philanthropic organisations are partnering more closely with pharmaceutical companies in order to better protect their populations against acute global health threats. How exactly are governments and other actors persuading market-oriented pharmaceutical companies to focus on health security threats in a context where their commercial research and development priorities increasingly lie in other areas? How, moreover, can such companies build viable and sustainable business model around medical countermeasures in the absence of a commercial market to sell such products into? How, finally, can the tension between ‘industry-as-partner’ and ‘industry-as-lobbyist’ inherent in these public-private partnerships be managed responsibly?
This project undertook the first systematic study and conceptualisation of the role of pharmaceutical companies in public-private collaborations for strengthening health security. The project improved our understanding of how pharmaceutical companies are becoming more closely involved in health security policy, how they are adapting their business models and strategies in response to growing health security concerns, and how governments and other actors are trying to responsibly manage these necessary (albeit politically sensitive) partnerships with the pharmaceutical industry. The project explored these questions through a series of comparative case study analyses drawn thematically form the three core areas of global health security: pandemic preparedness; emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases in low-income countries; and bioterrorism. The research was carried out by a three-person interdisciplinary team, led by Professor Stefan Elbe, Director of the Centre for Global Health Policy at the University of Sussex. Overall, the project produced a range of new knowledge about the challenges, interests, and power relations at play in the quest to develop new medical countermeasures in the area of global health security, and how processes for their development might be improved in future. The new knowledges and policy-lessons were made public available through a range of open-access scientific publications, policy briefs and other outlets.
This project undertook the first systematic study and conceptualisation of the role of pharmaceutical companies in public-private collaborations for strengthening health security. The project improved our understanding of how pharmaceutical companies are becoming more closely involved in health security policy, how they are adapting their business models and strategies in response to growing health security concerns, and how governments and other actors are trying to responsibly manage these necessary (albeit politically sensitive) partnerships with the pharmaceutical industry. The project explored these questions through a series of comparative case study analyses drawn thematically form the three core areas of global health security: pandemic preparedness; emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases in low-income countries; and bioterrorism. The research was carried out by a three-person interdisciplinary team, led by Professor Stefan Elbe, Director of the Centre for Global Health Policy at the University of Sussex. Overall, the project produced a range of new knowledge about the challenges, interests, and power relations at play in the quest to develop new medical countermeasures in the area of global health security, and how processes for their development might be improved in future. The new knowledges and policy-lessons were made public available through a range of open-access scientific publications, policy briefs and other outlets.