Final Report Summary - PHARMASECURITY (Pharmaceuticals and Security: The Role of Public-Private Collaborations in Strengthening Global Health Security)
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.