This proposal addresses RFA Theme 4 (Focus on Global Health), and RFA Theme 5 (Reinvigorating the Biomedical Research Community). Although many scientific advances in global health have occurred with support from NIH and charitable foundations, often these have stalled in implementation or scalability for the developing world due to lack of affordability, design modeling or business implementation. We are proposing a unique infrastructure at Stanford to accelerate scientific progress in the innovative design of extremely affordable diagnostics, drugs and devices for global health. We will integrate existing multidisciplinary programs in business, design, medicine and engineering at Stanford into a Global Health Consortium focused on Innovation, Design, Evaluation and Action (C-IDEA) (RFA Theme 5). Target areas will include neglected infectious diseases and chronic non-communicable diseases of the developing world (RFA Theme 4). C-IDEA will also utilize economists and social scientists to ensure that the focus on innovative design of new diagnostics, drugs and devices are scalable, have high impact and are able to be implemented and commercialized.
The goal of this project is to focus Stanford University's ground-breaking innovation and design upon the challenges of global public health and the neglected diseases of the developing world. Stanford's multidisciplinary approach to design will be further refined for global health needs and an integrated Global Health Innovation Process will be posted on a public domain website for other institutions to use as a model. Stanford Global Health Consortium (C-IDEA) will strive to advance affordable drugs, devices and diagnostics for low resource settings and medically underserved populations.
