Global Health and the Sustainable Development Goals: The Role of Innovation in Addressing Health-Related SDGs
April 25, 2024
In line with this year’s World Intellectual Property Day theme, which focuses on the link between intellectual property (IP) and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), this article illustrates how health intersects with these goals and the need to further foster innovation in the health space.
COVID-19 underscored how health influences every facet of our lives. During the pandemic, poverty reduction progress faced its biggest setback in decades, education delivery was disrupted, and disparities were highlighted in terms of access to medicines and treatments. COVID-19 also revealed that certain populations – including women, indigenous communities, and migrants in low and middle-income countries – are more vulnerable to public health emergencies.
SDGs provide a roadmap for action to achieve prosperity and peace. Global health is essential to achieve this, underpinning the SDGs in their totality. Health-related outcomes are integral to the achievement of all 17 SDGs, and the strategic use of IP can facilitate this achievement.
SDG 3 is known as “the health goal”, focusing on “Good Health and Well-Being”. Based on this goal, countries aim to reduce maternal mortality; end preventable deaths of newborns and children; end epidemics of malaria, tuberculosis, AIDS and neglected tropical diseases; ensure access to sexual and reproductive health-care services; and achieve universal health coverage by guaranteeing all people are able to access quality health services.
Health is a cross-cutting topic that is addressed in all SDGs
From ending poverty and hunger to ensuring quality education and promoting inclusive societies, health cuts across all SDGs. Indeed, there are many health issues that can be addressed by fulfilling the SDGs:
- When it comes to gender equality (SDG #5) there is a big gap in the research of diseases related to women-specific conditions, like endometriosis—a condition in which endometrial tissue grows outside of the uterine wall causing pelvic pain, and more broadly in the research of those diseases that affect women disproportionately. For example, most of the research on cardiovascular diseases is conducted on men, and this has led to women remaining undertreated for these diseases. Both hospitalization rates and fatal complications after heart attacks have dramatically increased among women as a result. Evidencing this, a recent World Economic Forum Report[1] found that, because of this gap in medical research, on average a woman will spend nine years in poor health –this means that women experience 25% more years in poor health compared to men.
- In the pharmaceutical and medical technology (products and services used for patient care) industries, local manufacturing in low- and middle-income countries can boost sustainable economic growth (SDG #8). Global disruptions like the COVID-19 pandemic and the far-reaching geopolitical and supply chain impacts. Local production allows for quicker adaptation to changing market demands, moreover, encouraging sustainable local production supports job creation and skills building.
- Every year, thousands of people die from drug-resistant strains of common bacterial infections like malaria and tuberculosis. The total amount of global deaths related to antibiotic-resistant infections is estimated to reach 10 million per year by 2050.[2] Among the drivers of antimicrobial resistance is antibiotic manufacturing waste which contains active pharmaceutical ingredients. To curb this resistance, pharmaceutical companies and allied industries play a critical role in ensuring that their production patterns are sustainable (SDG #12). By improving wastewater management practices, the risk of antimicrobial resistance and environmental harm can be mitigated.
- Another big threat to human health is climate change (SDG #13). From climate-related migration that could expose migrants to endemic diseases for which they might have limited resistance[3], to deaths and illness from extreme weather events, disruption of food systems, a rise in vector-borne diseases, and a rise in respiratory diseases, there are severe health-implications that could result from climate change.
- These pressing issues require immediate action, and this can be more effectively achieved by enhancing regional and international cooperation through partnerships. Particularly, in the health sector, this cooperation can be focused on innovation and R&D as well as access to science, technology, and innovation, along with knowledge-sharing through better coordination of existing mechanisms (SDG #17).
How can innovation meet the current demand of health-related needs?
The urgency of these challenges is intensifying, as is its impact on society. There is an important need to accelerate and expand innovation in the health sector. Innovative products and services will be essential to improving the affordability, quality, and effectiveness of healthcare systems.
For instance, the gender gap that exists in the research of diseases that affect women disproportionally can be bridged through innovations in Femtech – a recently coined term that refers to diagnostic tools, services, and products that, with the use of technology, aim to address women’s health issues.[4] Femtech entrepreneurs are currently transforming women’s healthcare by improving care delivery, enabling self-care, improving diagnoses, addressing stigmatized areas and delivering culturally sensitive and tailored care[5].
Watch the Femtech video on Youtube
Innovation to address long-standing global health challenges
When it comes to infectious diseases like tuberculosis, where antimicrobial resistance to available treatments has developed, there is a critical need to invest in new and improved medical alternatives that can help stop the spread of drug-resistant tuberculosis. Tuberculosis, which disproportionately impacts resource-poor settings, is reported to infect one fourth of the world’s population, with over 10 million people becoming ill with TB each year. Innovation to develop better treatment options for tuberculosis has been slow, however, the M72/AS01E (M72) vaccine has the potential to become the world’s first new tuberculosis vaccine in 100 years.
IP is an important piece of the innovation puzzle
A recent WIPO report mapped out SDG-related innovations and patents and found that SDG 13 on climate action and SDG 3 on good health are among the SDGs with the highest number of related patents filed. The number of patents in the Femtech sector has grown, with filings doubling over the past 20 years[6]. These findings underscore the role of IP in advancing global health and sustainability efforts and these numbers serve as good indicators to assess the speed of innovation in a sector.
As evidenced in the Patent Landscape Report on Covid-19-related vaccines and therapeutics, the record time in which vaccines were developed and approved would not have been possible without decades of scientific innovations and their related patenting activity[7]. The report also attributes this to an integrated health, trade, and IP approach to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic[8].
Coordinating efforts and enhancing cooperation in global fora is equally important. WIPO’s trilateral engagement with the WTO and WHO is a good example of cooperation and developing collaborative work on cross-cutting global health challenges. In November 2023, for instance, the three organizations held the 10th Joint Technical Symposium with a focus on human health and climate change. The event underscored the importance of exploring the intersections among public health, trade, and IP to address the effects of climate change on human health, especially among the world’s most marginalized populations.
Our work continues
WIPO highlights the crucial role of innovation and creativity in addressing some of the world’s most pressing challenges, demonstrating how IP catalyzes progress across the SGDs including health, environmental sustainability, and gender equality.
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