I do. Millions of Africans do. Two of the world’s wealthiest people do. And against all odds, two U.S. biotech companies do too. The story starts in Africa where about 7,000 new cases of sleeping sickness happen each year. If diseases could be classified as cruel and unusual, sleeping sickness would be at the top … Continue reading “There is a New Clinical Trial of a Novel Drug for African Sleeping Sickness. Who Cares?”
Author: Melinda Moree
Melinda Moree is the CEO of BIO Ventures for Global Health, a non-profit organization whose mission is to save lives by accelerating the development of novel drugs, vaccines, and diagnostics coming from the biotechnology industry. She has been a member of the board of directors since the company’s inception in 2004. In her tenure as CEO, Dr. Moree has grown the organization and introduced significant new programs which find the common ground between the goals of global health and the pragmatic needs of companies to bring more biopharmaceutical companies into neglected disease product development. In addition, she has overseen the design of a new “Pay for Success” incentive aimed at increasing the number of companies working on products for neglected diseases. She has also significantly increased funding for the organization and overseen the opening of a San Francisco office.
Before joining BVGH, Dr. Moree was the Principal Investigator on the Malaria Policy Project conducted with the Center for Global Development, a member of the team evaluating the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative, and consulted with the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunizations. Until early 2007, Dr. Moree was the Director of the Malaria Vaccine Initiative (MVI), a public-private-partnership with a mission to accelerate the development of malaria vaccines and to ensure that they are available and accessible to people in developing countries. While at MVI, she was instrumental in setting the overall vision for the program and in ensuring an organizational design and a sense of urgency that enabled rapid execution and solid relations with industry. Dr. Moree oversaw the growth of the program from $50 million to $300 million and a tripling in staff. Most importantly a key milestone event—proof of concept (efficacy) in children in Africa-- was achieved under her leadership.
Prior to joining MVI, Dr. Moree was Manager of Advanced Research at EKOS Corporation and worked in technology transfer at the University of Washington School of Medicine. This work was preceded by an American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Science and Diplomacy fellowship at the United States Agency for International Development. During the fellowship Dr. Moree began her first work on public private partnerships for the development of technologies and diagnostics for the developing world. She received her Ph.D. in Medical Microbiology from the University of Maryland at Baltimore.