Health R&D remains at odds with needs of poor, says policy expert

Greater transparency is needed in global health research to make sure it better matches the global disease burden, a UK-based health research policy specialist has said.

In an article published in Global Health Action on 10 October, Roderik Viergever of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine writes that a lack of accountability and coordination still plagues health R&D funding.

This perpetuates the situation whereby 90 per cent of global health R&D funding addresses the health priorities of only 10 per cent of the world’s population, neglecting the needs of the poor, he writes.