Programs

  • Program 1 [2020]

    Covid-19: FIND is co-convening the diagnostics arm of the ACT Accelerator - a global collaboration to accelerate access to COVID-19 tests, treatments, and vaccines for Low Middle Income Countries (LMICs) - with the Global Fund. The aim is to ensure that everyone who needs a test can get one. FIND-specific COVID-19 activities and outputs for 2020 included: i) Comparative evaluation studies of new products that provided supplier-independent, standardized data on 80 SARS-CoV-2 diagnostics. This data is publicly available, enabling end-users to make data-driven decisions; ii) R&D and manufacturing scale-up projects for antigen-based rapid diagnostics tests (Ag RDTs), resulted in volume and price commitments for optimized tests (more robust, nasal, or oral samples), with manufacturing in India and South Africa, and support to a social enterprise model for expanded manufacturing in Senegal and Pakistan; iii) building capacity for COVID-19 diagnosis through training and enabling healthcare workers to obtain the most up-to-date information on COVID-19 testing, with ~25,000 learners enrolled in public and private courses in >190 countries; and iv) a significant project to address bottlenecks in reagent supply for assay development, by supporting antigen production in plant models, where 40% of all proteins are for use in assays for LMICs.
    Geographies
    Not indicated
    Dates
    Jan 1, 2020 – Dec 31, 2020
    Source
    990
    No causes provided
    No populations provided
    –
    $33.6M

  • Program 2 [2020]

    AMR/OUT: This program has two arms, one with a general remit of pandemic preparedness, and the other specific to the antimicrobial resistance pandemic. Outbreak focus was shifted to Covid-19, so AMR had the higher spend across two workstreams: 1) One Health digital surveillance where two pilot initiatives based on open-source digital technologies were completed in Zambia and Senegal. These systems have provided baseline data and tools for One Health analytics on WHO Glass priority pathogens as well as a broad spectrum of isolates. 2) New diagnostics that will improve gonorrhea management in LMICs to enable stewardship of new antibiotics (under development by GARDP), where the most promising reagents coming out of feasibility assessments were transferred to development of a lateral flow test to meet WHO target product profiles. The largest "outbreaks" project for 2020 aims improve preparedness and response to Lassa fever through R&D and capacity-building activities, the latter with Nigeria as a model that can be replicated in other affected regions. R&D work is still in feasibility phase, a complex project that targets a semi-open platform i.e. where different assay manufacturers can develop reagents that will run off a single device. This model can then be applied beyond Lassa fever.
    Geographies
    Not indicated
    Dates
    Jan 1, 2020 – Dec 31, 2020
    Source
    990
    No causes provided
    No populations provided
    –
    $10.9M

  • Program 3 [2020]

    TB: The two major focus areas for the TB programmes for 2020 were on i) point of care (POC) tests for TB detection, where the work was mostly R&D; ii) tests for detecting drug-resistant forms of TB (DR-TB), where the work was mostly evidence generation, both through clinical evaluations and usability and acceptability studies and cost-effectiveness analyses. The R&D work is mostly around LAM-based rapid tests, with or without a reader, and around looking at sample collection and concentration technologies and methods that may in future have applicability outside of TB as well. The DR-TB work is by far the largest part of the portfolio with technologies ranging from decentralized fully automated molecular tests for multi- and extensively drug-resistant (TB MDR and XDR- TB) to centralized molecular platforms and next-generation sequencing. The outcome of 2020 work on DR-TB was that two products received regulatory clearance (CE Mark) and evidence from FIND-led studies was provided toward four WHO recommendations. Important amongst these WHO recommendations was one for a line probe assay for pyrazinamide (PZA), which is the only LPA available for PZA - now a key drug for TB - and the only molecular test for PZA reviewed by WHO. The alternative test option (phenotypic DST) is slow, expensive, and requires BSL3.
    Geographies
    Not indicated
    Dates
    Jan 1, 2020 – Dec 31, 2020
    Source
    990
    No causes provided
    No populations provided
    –
    $9.2M