Breakthroughs Blog: Diagnostics

Interested in more global health innovation news? Every week GHTC scours media reports worldwide to deliver essential global health R&D news and content to your inbox. Sign up now to receive our weekly R&D News Roundup email. Last Wednesday, the World Health Organization and the Medicines Patent Pool announced a new nonexclusive license agreement with SD Biosensor for the firm’s rapid diagnostic testing technology, which, through a phased technology transfer plan, will allow sublicensees to manufacture the technology, with additional benefits for the broader effort of manufacturing capacity-building in low- and middle-income countries. The agreement was negotiated under the COVID-19 Technology Access Pool (C-TAP), which was launched at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, but it includes a broad range of diseases, including HIV, malaria, and syphilis. The rapid testing technology is the basis of SD Biosensor’s COVID-19 antigen test and is ideal for low- and middle-income countries because it has no equipment requirements and is easy to use with high sensitivity. The announcement also coincided with the unveiling of a new business model, the Health Technology Access Pool, which will succeed C-TAP and address other priority health issues beyond COVID-19.A new project—FLAVIVACCINE—from a diverse consortium of partners aims to increase the European Union’s ability to combat epidemic and viral threats in Europe and globally by supporting the development of a pan-flavivirus vaccine candidate that could protect against multiple flaviviruses, such as dengue, yellow fever, Zika, and West Nile. Beyond seeking a vaccine candidate, the project also aims to provide support across the R&D value chain, offering a boost to the broader global pandemic preparedness and response capability. The project is being organized by public and private institutions, including universities, research institutions, and a vaccine developer, spanning seven countries in Europe and the United States.A new grant to the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi) from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will support the development of innovative new drugs for sleeping sickness and river blindness. Specifically, the $20 million grant spanning until 2027 will support a single-dose cure for sleeping sickness and a short-course new treatment for river blindness, both diseases with a major footprint in sub-Saharan Africa and for which new tools are urgently needed to accelerate progress toward elimination, despite enormous progress in controlling them in recent years. These investments build on earlier-stage research also supported by the Gates Foundation.

Interested in more global health innovation news? Every week GHTC scours media reports worldwide to deliver essential global health R&D news and content to your inbox. Sign up now to receive our weekly R&D News Roundup email. The Genomic Surveillance Unit at the Wellcome Sanger Institute and the Centre for Epidemic Response and Innovation at Stellenbosch University are partnering to advance the practice of genomic surveillance, which has been around for decades but really came to the forefront during the COVID-19 pandemic and has the potential to improve global efforts against other infectious diseases, including malaria and cholera. During the COVID-19 pandemic, there was huge global investment in genomic surveillance infrastructure, with the Stellenbosch lab being the first to confirm the discovery of the Beta and Omicron variants. In the last year alone, the work of the two labs has contributed to doubling the number of sequences available for dengue, chikungunya, and malaria parasites. Genomic surveillance uses sequencing to get data about the genetic material of a pathogen, which is then used to track how the pathogen is changing or spreading.Researchers from the Health and Medical Research Institute at Japan’s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology have developed a bioluminescent assay that could serve as a rapid, low-cost, and convenient test to complement laboratory testing for COVID-19. The test uses a bioluminescent molecule found in some small crustaceans that glows when it reacts with the virus that causes COVID-19 in a saliva sample and can be used with commercially available handheld luminometers at the point-of-care. The research team is planning for initial commercialization in the Japanese and US markets.ProteinLogic and Stellenbosch University will use a $1.35 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to determine whether an immunoassay technology being developed by ProteinLogic can be used to monitor treatment response to tuberculosis (TB) antimicrobial chemotherapy in patients. ProteinLogic's ImmiPrint testing technology is a protein-based test based on predictive models developed through machine learning that aims to offer rapid, efficient, and cost-effective discovery of diagnostic biomarkers across multiple diseases. Its new partner, Stellenbosch University, has been leading clinical trials on TB diagnostic biomarkers. In the face of the growing threat of drug-resistant strains of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, there is an urgent need for new technologies to monitor the effectiveness of current treatments, in addition to the need for novel treatments and prevention methods for TB.

Neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) are a group of infectious diseases that exert a crushing burden in vulnerable communities around the world. These diseases can blind, disable, and disfigure people, robbing them of health and opportunity and trapping them in poverty. While breakthroughs in recent years have brought new resources to the fight against NTDs, significant gaps remain in the arsenal of tools needed to control and eliminate these diseases. In recognition of World NTD Day on January 30, GHTC is testing our readers’ knowledge with nine questions about NTD innovation. See if you can beat our quiz below, and join the fight to #BeatNTDs and #EndTheNeglect. 

While we know that vaccines, drugs, diagnostics, devices, and vector control innovations are all vital tools in our global health toolbox, in this year of the World Health Assembly resolution on strengthening diagnostics capacity, GHTC wanted to shine a special spotlight on diagnostics as an often underrecognized driver of global health progress. Diagnostics play a critical role for patients, health care providers, and decision-makers, and innovating and improving access to diagnostics are necessary to achieving universal health coverage. The below presentation, which was shared during GHTC's Innovating for Impact Awards reception on December 12, features an explainer of types of diagnostics tests and a glossary of terms, as well as key quotes and facts that demonstrate the critical role of diagnostics.