Product Development Partnerships (PDPs)

Overview

PDPs are public–private partnerships established to develop and provide access to new health products – especially vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics – for poverty-related and neglected diseases. PDPs are non-profit-making and typically funded by public and philanthropic organizations. With their origins at a Bellagio conference by the Rockefeller Foundation on accelerating research and development (R&D) of a preventative HIV vaccine in 1994, more than a dozen PDPs have been established. They have proven to be a successful model to undertake R&D in disease areas which would otherwise lack commercial interest.

While the disease focus of PDPs has mainly been on HIV, malaria, and tuberculosis, PDPs have also made substantive progress in developing new health products for neglected diseases and drug-resistant infections. PDPs engage with academic research institutions and the pharmaceutical industry and are active in all stages of pharmaceutical product development. In early-stage product development, some PDPs act as facilitators, outsourcing most of the laboratory and clinical work to partners, while other PDPs undertake most of the research in house.

PDPs not only develop new health technologies, but typically also undertake activities aiming to provide equitable access to them and thus to improve the health of vulnerable populations in low- and middle-income countries. It is estimated that about 2.4 billion people have so far benefitted from 60+ new health technologies introduced by PDPs. With several hundred additional products in the pipeline, PDPs are expected soon to make an even larger contribution to global health, helping to alleviate poverty and increase global security. The work of PDPs is also increasingly relevant in responding to current and emerging global health crises, as shown during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Collaboration between WHO and PDPs

WHO has been working closely with PDPs to support them in their efforts to develop much-needed new health technologies to fight poverty-related and neglected diseases and to ensure that these technologies become quickly accessible to the most vulnerable populations. For example, in 1996 WHO signed an agreement together with 12 WHO Member States to establish the International Vaccine Institute (IVI). More recently, WHO, together with the Drugs for Neglected Disease initiative (DNDi), established the Global Antibiotic Research and Development Partnership (GARDP) to develop new treatments for drug-resistant infections. As part of the close collaboration between PDPs and WHO, the Evidence to Policy and Impact Unit of WHO’s Research for Health Department organized a WHO–PDPs Forum on 1–2 June 2022 to discuss the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the work of PDPs. The meeting report can be downloaded here. The 2023 WHO–PDPs Forum took place in early October 2023 and focused on missing health technologies. The meeting report is available here. The 2025 WHO-PDPs Forum titled "Aligning R&D efforts and promoting local production" took place at WHO headquarters in Geneva in February 2025. The main topics discussed as well as the conclusions are summarized here.         

To guide PDPs in their product R&D for new health technologies, WHO regularly publishes target product profiles (TPPs), currently covering more than 25 diseases (visit WHO’s website for a complete list of WHO TPPs). TPPs outline the desired profile or characteristics of a target product that is aimed at a particular disease or diseases. TPPs state the intended use, target populations, and other desired attributes of products, including safety and efficacy-related characteristics. These profiles can thereby support the development of missing health products, keeping the focus on public health priorities.