[Ip-health] DNDi letter to 13 WHO DG candidates

[Thiru Balasubramaniam]

Geneva, 23 October 2006

As co-promoters of the R&D Appeal launched in 2005 by Drugs for
Neglected Diseases initiative and its partners, 19 Nobel Laureates and
now supported by over 7500 scientists and academics worldwide, we firmly
believe that governments should play a pivotal leadership role in
needs-driven R&D for neglected diseases.

The landmark R&D Resolution 59.24 was approved by the member states of
the World Health Assembly one week after the late WHO Director General,
Dr. Lee, received the R&D Appeal in May 2006. The R&D Appeal urges
global public responsibility in:

    * Setting global health R&D priorities according to patient needs
    * Establishing better strategies to stimulate essential health R&D
      (for diagnostics, vaccines, and drugs)
    * Providing sustained financial support to essential health R&D

We wish to remind the 13 WHO Director General candidates that the WHO,
in living up to its institutional mandate, now has the imperative to
play a leading role in prioritizing and creating an environment more
conducive to innovative medical research that addresses the essential
needs of the poor.

Found in the WHA Resolution, this spirit remains true to the main
recommendations of the Report of the Commission on Intellectual Property
Rights, Innovation and Public Health (CIPIH) released on 3^rd April 2006.

In response to a growing concern over the inadequacy of the current
global system to support innovation in new medicines and essential
health tools for neglected diseases, the WHA Resolution seeks to ensure
that R&D efforts address the priority needs of patients living in
resource-poor settings and often without access to essential medicines.

To achieve these objectives, the resolution aims to harness
collaborative R&D initiatives involving governments and to ensure that
progress in basic science and biomedicine is translated into improved,
safe, and affordable health products =96 drugs, vaccines, and diagnostics.

The WHO has been given a two-year time frame in which to create a more
favourable environment for needs-driven R&D. We firmly believe that, by
displaying the same boldness it showed in adopting the Essential Drugs
policies in the 1970s, the WHO can impose its will and influence by
swiftly acting on the tenets set by the WHA Resolution.

Through philanthropic commitments made in recent years, many initiatives
have been established to accelerate innovation for neglected diseases
that respond to patients needs. But to ensure a long-term and
sustainable response, the WHO needs to recapture its central
institutional role on health and to exercise that role fully by defining
needs, assessing priorities, and ensuring that other institutions and
actors are held accountable in terms of their health policies and programs.

We sincerely hope the next leader of WHO will have the strength and
clarity of purpose to undertake his role as director of the organisation
responsible for global public health.
** **

**Yves Champey** **Bernard Pecoul**

**President of the board, DNDi Executive Director, DNDi**

**Other signatories**

**DNDi Founding Partners**

**Alice Dautry**/*/,/*/** **/*/Director General, Institut Pasteur, France/*=
/

**Davy Koech, **/*/Director, Kenya Medical Research Institute, Kenya;/*/

**Paulo Buss, **/*/President, Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, Brazil;/*/

**Carlos Morel, **/*/DNDI Board Member, Representative of Oswaldo Cruz
Foundation, , Brazil/*/

**Ismail Merican, **/*/Director General, Ministry of Health, Malaysia;/*/

**Rowan Gillies, **/*/President M=E9decins sans Fronti=E8res International;=
/*/

**Partners**

**Barbara Stocking, **/*/Director, Oxfam GB;/*/

**Richard Jefferson, **/*/Director BIOS Initiative, Australia/*/