Making Markets for Vaccines - Endorsements And Launch

We've been pretty busy organising the launch this Thursday of the report of the CGD Working Group on Advance Market Commitments.As I reported earlier, we've got a great line-up of speakers. Furthermore, as you may have seen in the Press Release, we have already had some great feedback from policy-makers and other experts:Prof. Jagdish BhagwatiColumbia University, author of In Defense of Globalization:

That public moneys be used to create vaccines and cures for diseases where there is need but no effective demand has long been recognized. The specific idea explored in this remarkable book, that a firm commitment be made to buy vaccines at prices and in quantities that attract private resources into developing the vaccines is an interesting and important innovation. It deserves the widest possible attention and action.

This is an innovative and practical idea which would unleash the resources of the private sector to develop vaccines that would protect millions of people from terrible diseases. Making Markets for Vaccines is policy analysis at its best: realistic, evidence-based and focused on the world's most pressing challenges.

Effective vaccines are urgently needed to supplement existing measures to combat the three great global pandemics. These new vaccines will come primarily from the research and development investments made by the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. The advance purchase commitments recommended in this book will provide important additional incentives, alongside the existing and growing purchasing power represented by GAVI and the Global Fund. The authors are to be congratulated for bringing this incisive analysis forward early in 2005, a year in which major breakthroughs are possible in the field of development finance.