News/Events

Two members of WDI’s Healthcare Research Initiative just attended the world’s largest pharmaceutical event in Madrid as part of the Institute’s continuing work to better understand the Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient (API) markets for malaria, tuberculosis, and HIV/AIDS medicines.

Lisa Smith, program manager for healthcare market dynamics, and pharmaceutical consultant Yuchen Lu  attended the CPhI event in Spain Oct. 13-15, which attracted thousands of industry representatives. Smith and Lu met with pharmaceutical manufacturers to share with them the market assessment work WDI has done in partnership with Howard University.

WDI’s work on the three-year API Market Dynamics Information Services (API MDIS) project is in its second year. WDI is supporting UNITAID, a global health initiative, to help characterize and identify key constraints in the API markets for malaria, HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis medicines.  This work informs further coordination amongst global health stakeholders including targeted investments to improve access to these products.

So far, WDI has conducted more than 70 interviews in person at manufacturing sites and pharmaceutical conventions like CPhI to gather information on the API markets. Smith, Lu and Stacy Finkbeiner, a WDI specialist in access to medicines, spent two months in China and India this summer updating information obtained during the first year of the project.

In the first phase of the API MDIS project, WDI and Howard University developed a standardized approach for collecting market information that is comparable across different therapeutic areas and can be communicated to stakeholders in an easy-to-understand way.

Findings from this first phase of the project highlighted the main shortcomings in each of the priority API markets. Preliminary recommendations were made for potential improvements in specific markets. In the second year of the project further verification of information is being done in concert with stakeholder engagement to move the conversation closer to action.

WDI will probe deeper into market shortcomings and the industrial economics of each API market.  Engagements with manufacturing companies will continue to be a key focus of team efforts. Public reports that highlight findings on each priority API market will be made available this fall, which will facilitate conversations with stakeholders as well as manufacturers.