Private-Sector Mercy - New York Times

A Peace Corps for pharmaceutical companies--similar ideas to those cited in C.K. Prahalad's "The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid."

Private-Sector Mercy - New York Times: "BY almost every measure - the spreading disaster of H.I.V. infection and AIDS, the vast suffering caused by malaria - the world is failing to meet the health needs of its poorest people. Yet in the world of public health, there is a growing mood of cautious optimism and commitment based on a novel way of approaching these problems; one that does not rely on Western governments.

In the West, and in developing countries, people and organizations are using proven business strategies to devise workable solutions. This social entrepreneurship is transforming global public health.

Consider the long-standing problem that developing countries have faced in obtaining affordable, effective drugs. The profit-making pharmaceutical business model that works well in generating effective treatments for many diseases in the developed world doesn't work at all for diseases limited to people who have little or no money. Yet it has produced drug leads that could treat and even cure some of the worst diseases that afflict the world's poorest people.

These promising leads are languishing because companies can't justify the enormous costs involved in turning them into therapies that won't return a profit, or even research and development investments. Thus with few exceptions, the pharmaceutical industry has abandoned research on drugs to treat tropical parasitic diseases."...

Today, public health is primarily a government responsibility. While we do need governments for implementation and scale, we need to encourage individuals and corporations to bring fresh ideas. And especially, we need to tap innovative social entrepreneurs like Govindappa Venkataswamy, an Indian doctor who turned an 11-bed clinic into the largest eye care facility in the world, and Vera Cordeiro, a Brazilian doctor who is building a health care system to prevent recurring illnesses in poor children. These entrepreneurs use the classic strategies of a start-up business - product innovation, efficiency improvements and a keen understanding of the customer - to find new solutions to the challenge of improving health.