The DALY Show

After the first authenticated set of disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) sold for the staggering price of $1.3 billion on eBay in January, signs of a global economic realignment are unmistakable. Rumors abound that the pharmaceutical industry will soon adapt to a situation in which earnings will be directly related to products' success in preventing and curing the major causes of death and disability in the world. A radical change in the pharma business model is on the way, with virtually all major firms now paying top dollar for research on drugs, vaccines and diagnostics for malaria, TB, diarrheal disease, respiratory infection and other global killers.

Other leading indicators of the impact of the boom market in DALYs:

• The World Health Organization (WHO) is likely to expand its mandate into the economic sphere, and is correspondingly considering changing its name to World Health and Trade (WHAT) or World Health Enterprise Network (WHEN). A for-profit arm of the new organization, World Health - Yes! (WHY), will provide consulting services to ventures seeking to cash in on the DALY business; industry watchers expect it to garner more - and more lucrative - business than its main competitor, McKinsey and Co.
• The Harvard Business School, merging with its new Alston campus neighbor, the Harvard School of Public Health, will replace all existing texts with Disease Control Priorities in Developing Countries; Millions Saved will be used as cases for business school classes. This is good news for b-school students, who are eager to acquire the highly prized Masters in Public Health. Harvard Med School is now planning a leveraged buy-out of MIT's Sloan School of Management.
• With new attention by investors to accurate measurement of health impact, Standard & Poor has bid on the MIT Jameel Poverty Action Lab. Academic researchers associated with the lab, who designed the auction, observed that the offer was "interesting," and are developing a game theoretic model to generate a counter-offer; preliminary findings are expected to be released in early 2009.
• Thanks to investments in global health futures, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is likely to overtake Microsoft in earnings next year. In an interview with Fortune to be published this month, Bill Gates admits that this turn of events is part of his personal investment strategy: "I got used to making money and just couldn't stop. And with my oldest child hitting the pre-teen years, I'm going to need the extra cash to buy iTunes." (In other news from the global health futures market, the IMF investment department has lost big bucks on its short selling strategy. Expect more gold sales soon.)
• In a dramatic move, KBR (formerly a subsidiary of Halliburton) is repurposing all dedicated military support operations, betting future earnings on investments in clean water and basic health infrastructure. Investors have warmly welcomed the news, and many shareholders have reported significant improvements in their own quality of life, which some have already put for bid on the emerging QALY market. In the words of one, "I sleep a lot better at night knowing that I'm doing some good in the world, while making a healthy return on the dollar."
• The Center for Global Development will be closing. CGD President Nancy Birdsall explained the move in two words: "Mission accomplished."

All this, and it's only April 1.