Correspondence
Analysis of pan-African Centres of excellence in health innovation highlights opportunities and challenges for local innovation and financing in the continent
1 African Network for Drugs and Diagnostics Innovation, United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
2 UNICEF/UNDP/World Bank/WHO Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases (TDR), World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland
3 Theodore Bilharz Research Institute, Cairo, Egypt
4 Fordsin Pharmacare Systems Ltd, Abuja, Nigeria
5 European and Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership, The Hague, Netherlands
6 Department of Chemistry, University of Ghana, Legon, Ghana
7 United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
8 University of Yaoundé, Yaoundé, Cameroon
9 Technology Innovation Agency, Department of Science and Technology, Cape Town, South Africa
10 University of Nairobi, Nairobi, Kenya
11 Department of Science and Technology, Cape Town, South Africa
12 Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research, Shanghai, China
13 Regional Office for Africa, World Health Organization, Brazzaville, Congo
14 European Commission, DG Research, Brussels, Belgium
15 University of Malawi, Box 278, Zomba, Malawi
16 Health Development Consultant, Abidjan, Ivory Coast
BMC International Health and Human Rights 2012, 12:11 doi:10.1186/1472-698X-12-11
Published: 27 July 2012Abstract
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.
