Innovation and the Sustainable Development Goals

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (O.E.C.D.) published its Economic Outlook Interim Report stating that a global economic recovery from the pandemic was finally taking hold, but it inched back its forecast for worldwide economic growth and warned that the rebound was benefiting wealthier countries more than the developing world as vaccine distribution occurs at an uneven pace. Countries that have made big strides toward vaccinating most of their populations are bouncing back much more quickly than those that are still struggling to obtain shots, the O.E.C.D. said, raising a host of related economic problems that are affecting global supply chains and pose a risk for the future.

Laurence Boone, the organization’s chief economist: “If we continue to vaccinate and adapt better to living with the virus, supply will begin to normalize and this pressure will fade, but for that we have to vaccinate more people.”

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 Innovation Council sat down with Ka Yi Ling, the CTO and Co-Founder of Shiok Meats, a cell-based meat and seafood company in Singapore. An early member of Innovation Council, the company produces delicious and nutritious meats that are at the same time animal-, health- and environment-friendly. A recent tasting event in Singapore confirmed the appeal of the Shiok Meat crustacean meat products to discerning palates. 

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Over the course of four online events, Innovation Council member Bobab, brings together diverse groups of experts from business, academia and policy from Africa, the UK and beyond. In this third event of the Forum Boabab will be asking tough questions around exactly how an enabling environment can be created for private sector investment; one that facilitates and directs capital to the areas of the agricultural value chain that can have the greatest impact, for both short-term recovery and long-term transformation.

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On 20 July, ICC is co-organizing a seminar on “Harnessing Public Research for Innovation in the Time of Covid-19 and Beyond – The Role of Knowledge Transfer Policies” together with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), AUTM, and the Licensing Executives Society International (LESI). This virtual session will take place from 12:30-15:25 CET (Geneva time) and will be held in English with simultaneous interpretation provided in Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian and Spanish.

Please register here with the following secure code: 33WSMBV521.

Over the past decade, several countries–representing all regions, income groups, and procurement methods—have been unable to secure sufficient BCG vaccine supply. While the frequency of stock-outs has remained rather stable, their duration increased in 2014–2015 due to manufacturing issues, attracting the attention of national, regional and global immunization stakeholders. This prompted an in-depth analysis of supply and demand dynamics which aimed to characterize supply risks. This analysis is unique, as it provides a global picture where previous analyses have focused only on a portion of the market that procures vaccines through UN entities. Through a literature review, supplier interviews, and the appraisal of shortages, stock-outs, and historical procurement data, as well as through demand forecasting, this analysis shows an important increase in global capacity in 2017: supply is sufficient to meet forecasted BCG vaccine demand and possibly buffer market shocks. Nevertheless, risks remain, mainly due to supply concentration, limited investment in production process improvements, and inflexibility of demand.

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Botond Roska, professor at the University of Basel, led the research for a gene therapy to add light-sensing molecules to a patient’s retina, which has improved the patient’s sight significantly. In the journal Nature Medicine, the authors describe how their patient lost his vision after being diagnosed 40 years ago with retinitis pigmentosa, a degenerative disease that destroys photoreceptors (the light-sensing cells in the retina). The doctors employed gene therapy to add a light-sensing molecule to one of the man’s eyes. The gene they added, called chrimson, comes from a single-celled algae species that is able to sense sunlight and move toward it. The idea behind adding the gene, says Roska, is to engineer retina cells called ganglions so that they become able to respond to light, sending visual signals to the brain.

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