Significant gaps persist between the development of scientific innovations and equitable access to them. Recognizing that planning early in the development process offers key opportunities for shaping downstream access, Johns Hopkins University and Unitaid co-hosted a convening to explore academia and research institutions’ role in advancing access considerations early and systematically throughout the full continuum of research and development (R&D) to delivery.
Johns Hopkins University, with support from a Nexus Convening Award from the Office of the Provost, aimed to share and garner perspectives from across its public health, ethics, and medicine schools and institutes, and in particular the work of the SMART4TB Consortium. Unitaid’s partnership reflects its broader commitment to an end-to-end approach to accelerating equitable access to health innovations and to catalyzing and aligning other actors to strengthen the global health ecosystem, such as for example with its work to advance the Target Access Profiles (TAPs).