Global Health Impact Project: Drug Efficacy

The Global Health Impact project aims to alleviate the global burden of disease in developing countries. The GHI has four indexes’, which measure pharmaceutical companies and other organizations based on their impact on global health to increase access to essential medicines. The country index measures the disease burden in each country by examining the efficacy of a drug used to cure the infected population. The GHI has a team of researchers, which systematically collect efficacy data on HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis and neglected tropical diseases (NTD).

Public scientific databases provide the GHI researchers access to human clinical trials on treatment efficacy. The GHI team systematically goes through the databases by searching key words such as drug name, efficacy, country and disease until all clinical studies are found. Each study is individual examined and broken down into country, dosage/regiment used, sample size, inclusion criteria, endpoint and efficacy. Efficacy data is reviewed and checked by another member and input accordingly. Once all studies are found on the disease the GHI team averages each drug efficacy percentage between and within the countries by the drug regiment and drug dosage. For the GHI to deliver valid data on drug efficacy each clinical endpoint of the studies are categorized by specific cure rate and time period (i.e. days, weeks, months, year). The endpoint is critical in the GHI efficacy data because it provides a particular drug with a specific time period of cure rate and efficacy, which is compared with the recommended clinical regiment treatment. The country’s index is then formulated into a model for the specific drug and used to show the disease burden within the country and then how much burden the drug alleviates. Together the GHI indexes’ focus on “three main factors that measure the amount of death and disability each drug prevents; (i) the need for the drug; (ii) Its effectiveness; (iii) How many people who need the drug can access it across the world” (“About the Index,” 2014). Rating each index allows companies and other organization to observe their impact, providing initiatives to increase access of essential medicine to reduce the global burden of disease.

Reference:

"About the Index." The GHI: An Initiative to Evaluate and Compare Medicines' Global Health Impact. January 1, 2014. http://global-health-impact.org/aboutindex.php.