Health Innovation Networks to Help Developing Countries Address

Gross inequities in disease burden between developed and developing countries are now the subject of intense global attention. Public and private donors have marshaled resources and created organizational structures to accelerate the development of new health products and to procure and distribute drugs and vaccines for the poor. Despite these encouraging efforts directed primarily from and funded by industrialized countries, sufficiency and sustainability remain enormous challenges because of the sheer magnitude of the problem. Here we highlight a complementary and increasingly important means to improve health equity: the growing ability of some developing countries to undertake health innovation. Improving the health of the poorest people in the developing world depends on the development and deployment of many varieties of health in-novations, including new drugs, vaccines, de-vices, and diagnostics, as well as new techniques in process engineering and manufacturing, man