Traditional medicines as a mechanism for driving research innovation in Africa

The outcomes from recent high profile deliberations concerning African health research and economic development all point towards the need for a mechanism to support health innovation on the continent. The mission of the African Network for Drugs and Diagnostics Innovation (ANDI), is to promote and sustain African-led health product innovation to address African public health needs through the assembly of research networks, and building of capacity to support human and economic development. ANDI is widely viewed as the vehicle to implementing some of these recommendations. There is tremendous opportunity for Africa, to leverage the expertise in natural products and traditional medicines in support of this objective to kick-start innovation. This report highlights key recommendations that have emerged through expert forums convened by ANDI on the challenges, opportunities and prospects for investing in this important area of research

Integrated dataset of screening hits against multiple neglected disease pathogens.

New chemical entities are desperately needed that overcome the limitations of existing drugs for neglected diseases. Screening a diverse library of 10,000 drug-like compounds against 7 neglected disease pathogens resulted in an integrated dataset of 744 hits. We discuss the prioritization of these hits for each pathogen and the strong correlation observed between compounds active against more than two pathogens and mammalian cell toxicity. Our work suggests that the efficiency of early drug discovery for neglected diseases can be enhanced through a collaborative, multi-pathogen approach

Analysis of pan-African Centres of excellence in health innovation highlights opportunities and challenges for local innovation and financing in the continent

<p>Abstract</p> <p>A pool of 38 pan-African Centres of Excellence (CoEs) in health innovation has been selected and recognized by the African Network for Drugs and Diagnostics Innovation (ANDI), through a competitive criteria based process. The process identified a number of opportunities and challenges for health R&D and innovation in the continent: i) it provides a direct evidence for the existence of innovation capability that can be leveraged to fill specific gaps in the continent; ii) it revealed a research and financing pattern that is largely fragmented and uncoordinated, and iii) it highlights the most frequent funders of health research in the continent. The CoEs are envisioned as an innovative network of public and private institutions with a critical mass of expertise and resources to support projects and a variety of activities for capacity building and scientific exchange, including hosting fellows, trainees, scientists on sabbaticals and exchange with other African and non-African institutions.</p