Opinion
Health and Healthcare Systems

Collaborative innovation: Reimagining R&D partnerships to create a healthier future for everyone

(Speakers Name, Job Title, Country) speaking during the Session:"CEPI: A Global Initiative to Fight Epidemics" at the Annual Meeting 2017 of the World Economic Forum in Davos, January 19, 2017.Copyright by World Economic Forum / Benedikt von Loebell; healthier futures

The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) was launched in 2017. Such collaborations can help create healthier futures for everyone. Image: World Economic Forum/Benedikt von Loebell

John-Arne Røttingen
Chief Executive Officer, Wellcome Trust
This article is part of: World Economic Forum Annual Meeting
  • Reinventing private, public and philanthropic collaboration could help develop multi-faceted solutions targeting infectious disease, mental health and the health impacts of climate change.
  • Solutions should be rooted in science and technological advancement, and offer new models of supply.
  • These efforts could help to achieve healthier futures for everyone by enabling the economy and society to thrive.

Purpose, perspective, partnership. That is what I see when I look back at this photograph taken in 2017 at the official launch of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) during the Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum.

Purpose, perspective, partnership – critically with government, business and philanthropy standing shoulder to shoulder and committing to advance healthier futures. In 2017, this group of private and public sector and philanthropic representatives formed a global coalition to create new vaccines for emerging infectious diseases.

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Science is one of our most powerful tools to drive health and economic prosperity, and to ensure equitable progress. Incredible progress has already been made through collaboration between philanthropic, public and private sectors.

But vast inequities and market failures persist. We need multi-faceted solutions targeting infectious disease, mental health and the health impacts of climate change. These should draw innovation and resources together across sectors.

Progress cannot be taken for granted. We do, however, have proof it can be done.

Health-focused partnerships

A year before that photograph was taken at the CEPI launch, communities in West Africa were still suffering from the effects of a devastating Ebola epidemic. Between 2014 and 2016, Ebola killed more than 11,000 people across Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia.

The Ebola virus had been discovered four decades earlier, in 1976, by Dr Jean-Jacques Muyembe, then a field epidemiologist in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Scientific advances and potential vaccines that followed were shelved, however, because the need was seen to be in countries where demand for solutions was not profitable. Ebola was a global threat to lives and economies. Defeating it demanded new ways of working that crossed sectors, interests and divides. A willingness to understand this gave rise to a global health-focussed philanthropic, public and private partnership: CEPI.

Experts and leaders from vaccine manufacturers, research, philanthropy, global governments and the World Health Organization came together to launch CEPI in 2017. Serving affected communities, providing equitable access to solutions and ensuring rigorous scientific research were – and still are – central to its mission.

CEPI has since gone from strength to strength. It has brought numerous, game-changing scientific breakthroughs to people across the world, including the development and licensing of the first Ebola vaccines and the advancement of the first Nipah and Lassa vaccines to clinical trials. CEPI has also played an instrumental role in developing COVID-19 vaccines and new Mpox vaccines, as well as advancing development and access to the first-ever Chikungunya vaccine.

CEPI is succeeding in providing an answer to market failures in vaccine R&D, while similar solutions – CARB-X, GARDP and the Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) Action Fund – have been developed for the ongoing and growing global threat of AMR. If we are to achieve the health advances society needs to prosper and thrive, we need more solutions like these. They should be rooted in science and technological advancement, and offer new models of supply.

Advancing science and health

Governments remain key funders and actors for advancing science and health. But the geopolitical realities we currently face are stretching public spending beyond its limits, leaving political will for international development sorely depleted.

The ability of the private sector to bring innovation, invest in research and develop products – as well as contribute to improving key systems such as food and housing – is critical to creating healthier futures for all. And the future of the global economy relies on healthier societies, workforces and customer bases.

Philanthropic funding can also help by de-risking and remedying market failures. It can catalyse governments to invest in areas only they can sustainably fund. Philanthropy’s engagement and influence can help ensure the equitable advancement of global public goods.

I was the founding CEO of CEPI. I have also served as chief executive of the Research Council and then as Global Health Ambassador for Norway. I'm now returning to Davos a year into my role as CEO of Wellcome, one of the world’s biggest philanthropic organizations and supporters of science.

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Reinventing collaboration for a healthier future

The business as usual of R&D is not working to improve global health for all so I want to pose a renewed challenge to partners across philanthropic, private and public sectors: How can we use our positions and connections to reinvent collaboration, to leverage science and to be more brave and ambitious in order to meet the urgent health challenges facing the world?

Wellcome has committed £16 billion over a decade to support science that will improve health for everyone. We also want to lead the way in evolving global partnerships to drive the equitable advancement of the global public good.​ Over the last year, Wellcome has launched a tripartite agreement with the Gates Foundation and the Novo Nordisk Foundation, as well as building private sector investment in mental health science through the Coalition for Mental Health Investment. Wellcome's recently launched climate and health coalition will catalyse the funding vital to maximize action and impact.

The World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting offers time and space for philanthropy, private and public sector organizations to have brave and open conversations, and to demonstrate lasting commitments to new solutions.

This year at Davos, I look forward to discussing how we might reimagine opportunities to collaborate to achieve the healthier futures we all want and need so that the economy and society can thrive – today and for generations to come.

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World Economic Forum articles may be republished in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Public License, and in accordance with our Terms of Use.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.

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