Global Health Blog

Over the last decade, significant investment and effort has been spent developing products to address diseases of the developing world, including malaria, TB, and AIDS. Product Development Partnerships (PDPs), nonprofit organizations that work with donors, governments, and the industry to develop drugs, vaccines, diagnostics, and vector control methods to address these diseases, have played a critical role in the development of these technologies.

Last week I attended a new effort spearheaded by the Global Health Council (GHC) to address the growing challenge of non-communicable diseases (NCDs). At its Washington, D.C. offices, the Council brought together a range of stakeholders to launch the NCD Roundtable. Chaired by the American Cancer Society and the NCD Alliance, along with the GHC, the Roundtable is an ambitious and timely effort by the Council to coordinate the range of efforts underway this year leading up to the high level UN Summit in September, and beyond.

A few days ago, I was listening to the energetic CTO of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Todd Park, talk about Text4baby, a text message service which provides pregnant women and new mothers in the U.S. weekly text messages with information they need to take care of themselves and their babies. Launched in February this year by the National Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition (HMHB) in collaboration with a number of private and public sector organizations, Text4baby has sent nearly 6 million messages to more than 100,000 subscribers to date. And its reach is growing.