Administration Officials Announce New Initiatives to Promote Innovations in Global Development

In a White House briefing on Wednesday, "senior Administration officials announced a series of new initiatives to promote game-changing innovations to solve long-standing development challenges" in response to President Obama's "call to harness science technology, and innovation to spark global development," Gayle Smith, special assistant to the president, and Tom Kalil, senior adviser for science, technology, and innovation, write in this post in the White House Blog (2/8). "The new collaborations we're launching today will help save lives from hunger and disease, lift people from poverty and reaffirm America's enduring commitment to the dignity and potential of every human being," President Barack Obama said at the briefing, according to a White House press statement, which details several new public and private sector initiatives announced at the meeting (2/8).

Speaking at the briefing, "head of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Dr. Francis Collins announced a new effort to increase access to innovative technologies for those working to provide broad global access to technologies, products and services," the Center for Global Health Policy's "Science Speaks" blog reports. "The Model Non-Profit License Agreement for Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs), HIV, Tuberculosis (TB) and Malaria Technologies was created for non-profit institutions and product development partnerships with a demonstrated commitment to neglected diseases to apply to use patented inventions and non-patented biological materials from NIH and the [FDA] intramural laboratories," the blog notes (Mazzotta, 2/8).