Top Universities rank pretty mediocre when it comes to researching diseases affecting the poor

Updated on: Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Harvard University and Johns Hopkins might be the top universities in public health with immense influence on global public health discourse, but when it comes to researching diseases affecting the poor and efforts to make medicines they help discover accessible to people in developing nations, they rank pretty mediocre.

This was revealed in the University Global Health Impact Report which evaluated 54 top US and Canadian universities on their contributions to urgent global health research and access to treatment worldwide. The top spot went to a Canadian university, University of British Columbia which earned an overall A- ranking, but an A in access to treatment. Five other universities including Johns Hopkins University and Harvard University got various levels of B grade with Harvard earning a higher A- for efforts to make medicines more accessible compared with Johns Hopkins that got a B- for the same.

The report found that on average, less than 3% of 2010 research funding at the top 54 US and Canadian universities was devoted to research projects focused on neglected diseases like Chagas disease, sleeping sickness, worm-based infections (helminths), and unaddressed treatment needs for HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria.

The report was prepared by the Universities Allied for Essential Medicines (UAEM), a student group comprising students from law medicines and other disciplines with chapters in universities across the world. The group works to improve access to medicines in low and middle income countries by changing norms and practices around university patenting and licensing of university-developed technology/drugs. UAEM released the report along with Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF- Doctors without Borders).

Universities are major drivers of medical innovation with one third or one fourth of all new medicines originating in academic labs, stated UAEM adding that the 54 institutions evaluated were chosen because they are unparalleled in their funding, research output, and capacity for effecting change. The report assessed the institutions on three key aspects --commitment to research in neglected diseases affecting mostly the poor; efforts to ensure that their discoveries in medicine and treatment became available to the developing world; and the teaching of global health courses to increase awareness among students about global health and the challenges of neglected disease, innovation and treatment access.

According to the report, though on an average about 60% of licences granted by the universities, for commercialisation of innovations, were non-exclusive, for medical technologies the proportion was lower at 30-40%. Among the universities that reported including provisions to promote global affordability in exclusive licences, it was found that such provisions were included only about 11% of the time. By sharing their medical breakthroughs under open, non-exclusive licenses or licenses that promote lower prices in developing countries, universities can help poor patients worldwide access new, life-saving treatments, noted UAEM.

The report was endorsed by Dr Paul Farmer chair of the Global Health and Social Medicine department at Harvard Medical School. Dr Farmer said: "This Report Card helps us measure the impact, or lack of impact, that university policies have on global health. I strongly encourage students, faculty, and broader university communities to call on their institutions to enact meaningful policies that improve the chances that lifesaving medicines reach those who need them most."

Top Universities rank pretty mediocre when it comes to researching diseases affecting the poor

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