The Impact of Global Health R&D

Explore our breakthrough impact report which reveals the return on investment in R&D over the past two decades and modelled to 2040. For every dollar spent, there is a societal return of $405. This is not just a good case for investment, but an outstanding one.

These insights show us the huge economic and societal gains achieved by global health R&D and we call the sector to action to ensure these benefits are felt.

The link between investment and impact is difficult to track but essential to know.

We have gathered funding and pipeline datasets which allow us to generate detailed insights on the state of global health R&D. G-FINDER provides comprehensive coverage of the funding landscape and the Infectious Diseases R&D Tracker covers approved products since 1999 and active candidates in the pipeline.

We have gathered the evidence necessary to measure the success of approved products to date, such as lives saved and DALYs averted, as well as the prospective impact of new technologies expected to launch in the future.

These health outcomes have been translated into social and economic impacts which has, for the first time, allowed us to calculate with confidence the return on investment in R&D.

If this benefit is to be realised, the whole global health sector must work together with a clear focus. We have identified some key recommendations to achieve this.

Funders and product developers must collaborate to find new mechanisms for investing in R&D.

This would mean more equitable power sharing and resource allocation. Innovative financing models should be explored. Policy should be leveraged to shape investment opportunities and regulatory strategies.

Invest across a diverse portfolio for greatest returns.

It’s challenging to attribute success in global health R&D, so diversifying across various technologies, product types and research avenues can mitigate risks and maximise impact. It’s also important to continue to coordinate priorities for the R&D agenda.

Make regulatory and scale up pathways as efficient as possible.

Use data and evidence to inform more streamlined clinical trial and regulatory approaches, to enhance capacity in LMICs, accelerate product approval timelines and to promote access at scale to critical health products. All of these require deeper collaboration across the entire R&D ecosystem, especially in areas prone to market failures.

Recognise the importance of impact assessment.

A better understanding of the correlation between funding, products and impacts, which we hope to promote with this report, should drive the agenda. We have released a framework of impact indicators which could be used to better demonstrate the impact of challenging product types such as diagnostics or vector control products (VCPs). Using this common framework could unlock investment and accelerate product development.

Strengthen the collaboration between R&D and access.

Product development efforts need to be aligned with improving access to healthcare, with more synergies between research, development and implementation. Affordability, availability and accessibility should be considered throughout the R&D process.