Biotech for Africa: McLaughlin-Rotman Centre publications

2 new publications out of the McLaughlin-Rotman Centre for Global Health:

From Nature Biotech: A survey of South-North health biotech collaboration

In recent years, biotech companies in North America and Europe have increasingly looked to developing countries to find new partners and develop new collaborations. Even though the growth rates of emerging economies like China and India, as well as several sub-Saharan African countries, have been hampered by the current global recession, over the past five years their economies have grown faster than economies anywhere else in the world. This growth has been reflected by growing indigenous private sectors in health biotech that are also taking active steps to strengthen their innovation capabilities, thereby allowing collaboration to become a two-way street.

And from The Africa Journal: Accelerating African Health Innovation

Effective investments in science, technology, and innovation have the potential to provide long term solutions to Africa’s disease burden. However, to date the Continent has been unable to capture the social and economic potential of science and technology. While Africa is more successful at health research, it is not as successful in commercializing that research into health products aimed at local and regional health problems. To fully harness the potential of indigenous research and development, the barriers that limit commercialization must be better understood and addressed.