Tokyo and Geneva—The Global Health Innovative Technology Fund (GHIT) and Unitaid have signed a collaboration framework that aims to increase awareness of and access to innovation and expertise in key areas such as malaria, tuberculosis and neglected tropical diseases.

In the context of achieving the health-related Sustainable Development Goals and universal health coverage (UHC), GHIT and Unitaid will use this new collaborative framework to coordinate actions to accelerate access to innovative solutions, focusing on products and technologies that can deliver the most impact on the ground and address the global health-related needs.

The framework will operate at a broad strategic level to support alignment between GHIT’s strength in product development and Unitaid’s expertise in promoting access to and scale-up of health innovations. It also creates a channel for continuous dialogue between the two parties as part of their goals to bring innovation to vulnerable and under-served populations for reaching UHC.

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Unitaid is a global development agency that turns good ideas into ground-breaking solutions for global health. This includes new ways to prevent, diagnose and treat diseases more quickly, cheaply and effectively, in low- and middle-income countries. It funds initiatives to address major diseases such as HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis, as well as HIV co-infections and co-morbidities such as cervical cancer and hepatitis C, and cross-cutting areas, such as fever management. Its projects ensure that health products achieve rapid and widespread adoption, improving health outcomes and allowing countries and major funders to deliver more with less. Unitaid is hosted by the World Health Organization and its major donors are France, the United Kingdom, Brazil, Norway, Chile, the Republic of Korea, Spain and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.