Pharmaceutical For The People
The pharmaceutical industry spends billions of dollars fighting Western ailments, but very little on diseases that kill millions in the developing world. Victoria Hale, recently awarded a MacArthur Fellowship for her efforts, is changing that. Hale's San Francisco-based nonprofit, Institute for OneWorld Health, is innovatively partnering around the world to bring these neglected drugs to market. She just scored her first success, receiving approval from the Indian government to sell a drug that cures visceral leishmaniasis. This disease, also known as black fever, kills 200,000 people a year and afflicts many times that number. And she has more drugs -– to treat malaria, Chagas' disease, and secretory diarrhea –- in the pipeline. In an interview with Stanford Social Innovation Review, Hale discusses why her optimism about the chances of saving millions of lives every year is growing.
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