Product Development Partnerships (PDPs) develop new products for people suffering from diseases and health threats underserved by traditional markets by building partnerships between the public, private, academic, and philanthropic sectors. In the global health space, PDPs have developed and introduced treatments, vaccines, diagnostics, vector controls, devices, and various other forms of innovation that have led to significant progress against some of humanity’s oldest and deadliest pandemics, including tuberculosis, malaria, HIV/ AIDS, neglected tropical diseases (NTDs), and a host of other poverty-related neglected diseases. In disease areas where traditional market incentives have not been sufficient to encourage significant investment by the private sector, PDPs and their funders and partners are the primary drivers of innovation, developing health solutions that would otherwise likely not exist.

Since 2010 the coalition of PDPs featured in this report have developed and introduced 66 new health technologies, which have reached more than 2.4 billion people around the world, including women, children, and other vulnerable populations often ignored by developers of new health technologies. This success has been driven by a needs-based approach, developing products appropriate for the settings in which they are most needed, which are often low-resource environments. Further, by pooling resources and leveraging partnerships, PDPs are consistently able to develop products at a total cost below that of the private sector.