At the dawn of the 21st century, malaria kills at least one million people a year while roughly two million children die from diarrheal diseases annually.
Dr. Victoria Hale knew that she had to do something about this. Having worked inside the drug industry for many years she realized that appropriate drugs would never be developed because they would never make a profit. The drugs that are already available are often too expensive for people in the developing world.
In 2000, Dr. Hale set up the Institute for OneWorld Health, the first nonprofit drug company in America. After five years, the San Francisco-based IOWH will bring to market its first affordable drug: a cure for Kala Azar, a parasitic disease that kills two hundred thousand people a year.
- Institute for OneWorld Health
- Essential Drugs and Medicines Policy , World Health Organization
- Cutting the Cost of Global Health, Oxfam Parliamentary Briefing Paper
- Web Salon: The Cost of Medicine, California Connected