Hundreds of millions of people are affected by “diseases of the poor”, such as African sleeping sickness, Leishmaniasis, and Chagas disease, as well as better known killers like Malaria and Tuberculosis. Yet there are far too few drugs, vaccines, and diagnostic tests to address these health challenges. In recents years, several creative proposals have emerged to accelerate Research and Development (R&D) for these neglected diseases, aiming to remove obstacles to entry and create incentives for pharmaceutical companies and biotechs to enter this traditionally challenging market.

With dozens of ideas put forward to create new financing streams, incentivize development of new drugs and technologies, change policies governing intellectual property rights and reform regulatory institution practices, it can be difficult for governments, philanthropists and private investors to identify the most promising innovations.

Recognizing the need for neutral and analytically sound assessments of these proposals, R4D's Center for Global Health R&D Policy Assessment is conducting rigorous independent reviews of innovative R&D policy proposals. The new website,  http://healthresearchpolicy.org, will serve as the central knowledge clearinghouse, providing our assessments for reviewed proposals, information on emerging ideas, as well as a regularly updated blog authored by our staff and invited guest bloggers featuring news and commentary.

Highlights of the website include:

• Information on our current assessments which focus on: 1) prizes to incentivize innovation for health products, 2) pooled funding mechanisms to mobilize and better channel funding to neglected disease R&D, and 3) joint IP management arrangements, or so-called “patent pools”
• Our Policy Innovations page, which allows you to browse the over 60 proposed policies to accelerate product development for global health. The search field allows you to look for specific policies, filter policies by Push and Pull strategy, or examine proposals under 8 types of Innovations corresponding to specific areas of R&D the Innovation intends to improve.
• The Center's blog,  featuring news, announcements and opinions about the latest occurrences in global health R&D policy

Visit http://healthresearchpolicy.org to learn more about this exciting new project and start participating in the dialogue.

_{The Center for Global Health R&D Policy Assessment is a project of the Results for Development Institute, with funding support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.}