Andrew W K Farlow

University of Oxford

Research Fellow in Economics, Oriel College

Senior Research Fellow and Economist, Spacial Ecology and Epidemiology Group and Malaria Atlas Project, Department of Zoology

Principal Investigator, Oxford Martin Programme on Vaccines, and Project Leader, Vaccine Health Economics

Crash & Beyond: Causes and Consequences of the Global Financial Crisis Andrew Farlow, Oxford University Press

Read about it here
448 pages | 234x156mm
978-0-19-957801-6 Hardback
UK RRP: £25
In all good bookstores from April 2013

OUP announces the book release, April 2013

Please note that the book is over 400 pages in length (including Preface, bibliography and index) and not, as some

website entries still say, 256 pages. After it was commissioned, it became a much more substantial book,

devoting eight of its twelve chapters to policy responses after the crash.

Please also note that the title and cover design were released in the spring of 2009 and widely available online from that date, and predate

the similar-sounding (and, some would say, looking) book on the crash by Gorden Brown.

Research Interests:

Global Health: Pharmaceutical research and development; global health financing and delivery; innovation and technology transfer issues in global

health settings; measurement of socioeconomic impact of health interventions; application of financial and risk management tools to global health

analysis; market, pricing, and launch strategies, especially in resource-poor settings. The approach is highly interdisciplinary and policy-orientated,

mixing science, economics, epidemiology, finance, and management practice

Financial Markets: Banking, equity, currency, and real estate; financial instability; monetary policy; bubbles

Global health

Global economy, real estate, banking

Other activities

Teaching

Media and public profile

Links

Oxford Conference on Innovation and Technology Transfer for Global Health

Recent papers and articles

Global Health and Neglected Disease Research and Development

WORK IN PROGRESS:

- A review of the evidence for UK policy on chickenpox and shingles vaccines has just been completed and shortly will be submitted.
- A paper analyzing the burden of disease for dengue in Cambodia and Thailand is awaiting data clearance before it can be published.
- A paper, with colleagues outside of Oxford, on the cost of dengue outbreaks has just been completed.
- Other work in progress:
‘Cost of dengue in Africa'
       'Key Issues in the Economics of Pandemic Flu Vaccine’
       ‘Prize Funds for Drugs and Vaccines: Principles and Challenges’
       ‘New Estimates of Drug Development Costs'
       'Renal failure and kidney transplant surgery in resource-poor settings'

SOME RECENT ACTIVITY:

The global distribution and burden of dengue Samir Bhatt, Peter W. Gething, Oliver J. Brady, Jane P. Messina, Andrew W. Farlow, Catherine L. Moyes, John M. Drake, John S. Brownstein, Anne G. Hoen, Osman Sankoh, Monica F. Myers, Dylan B. George, Thomas Jaenisch, G. R. William Wint, Cameron P. Simmons, Thomas W. Scott, Jeremy J. Farrar & Simon I. Hay, Nature, 07 April 2013. This has already been heavily covered in the global media, such as AP, Reuters, The Hindu, Science

The Challenges and Possibilities of Reducing Deaths from Cryptococcal Meningitis in Sub-Saharan Africa

in PLOS Medicine, September 2012.

Refining the Global Spatial Limits of Dengue Virus Transmission by Evidence-Based Consensus Oliver J. Brady, Peter W. Gethin, Samir Bhatt, Jane P. MesThe global distribution and burden of dengue, Samir Bhatt, Peter W. Gething, Oliver J. Brady, Jane P. Messina, Andrew W. Farlow, Catherine L. Moyes, John M. Drake, John S. Brownstein, Anne G. Hoen, Osman Sankoh, Monica F. Myers, Dylan B. George, Thomas Jaenisch, G. R. William Wint, Cameron P. Simmons, Thomas W. Scott, Jeremy J. Farrar & Simon I. Hay, Nature, sina, John S. Brownstein, Anne G. Hoen, Catherine L. Moyes, Andrew W. Farlow, Thomas W. Scott, Simon I. Hay, PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases, August 2012.

I have recently joined the Malaria Atlas Project where I am working on dengue, as part of a broader effort to apply some of my economic and financing thinking to tackling diseases. My dengue work is financed by the EU-funded International Research Consortium on Dengue Risk Assessment, Management and Surveillance.

Fixing GAVI’s Cash Crunch , in Human Vaccines and Immunotherapeutics, Vo 7, Issue 3, March 2011, Landes Bioscience, part of a series of invited responses to be found here

A Review of Malaria Vaccine Candidate RTS,S/AS02A, January 2010. This will as new trial data comes out.

I recently contributed thoughts for a piece by Tatum Anderson in the British Medical Journal on Innovative Financing of Health Care.

Stop TB Partnership Working Group on New Vaccines: Task Force on Economics and Product Profiles. Meeting wrap up presentation: Gaps and Plans, Veyrier-du-Lac, October 2009. Meeting report. Meeting Executive Summary. The third meeting of the Task Force was in Oxford in the summer of 2010 and involved those in Oxford working on TB vaccines

Testimony on evaluation framework, evaluation criteria and Inventory of financing proposals for the WHO Expert Working Group on R&D Financing

‘“Where’s all the money gone?” Financial crisis and global health spending: Priority setting past, present and future’, Vice Chancellor’s Global Health Research Forum, University of Oxford. September 2009

“Financial Meltdown and Neglected Diseases: Who will pay the price?” Talk given at launch event of first G-FINDER (Global Funding of Innovation for Neglected Diseases) report, Royal College of Physicians, London, February 2009. See the video of all speakers and panel and audience discussion here. Copy of talk here

TB Vaccine Scoping Study Part 1 (Epidemiology, cost effectiveness and socioeconomic issues; Demand, revenue, adoption, pricing and cost issues) for the Task Force on Economics and Product Profiles, of the Stop TB Working Group on New Vaccines (WHO, Aeras Global TB Vaccine Foundation, and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation), December 2008. Meeting Report. Meeting Executive Summary

TB Vaccine Scoping Study Part 2 (Lessons for TB from a selection of other vaccines) for the Task Force on Economics and Product Profiles, of the Stop TB Working Group on New Vaccines (WHO, Aeras Global TB Vaccine Foundation, and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation), December 2008

TB Vaccine Discussion Points for Task Force on Economics and Product Profiles, December 2008

Stop TB Working Group on New Vaccines: Task Force on Economics and Product Profiles: Discussion Point PowerPoint for first meeting, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, 11-12 December 2008

Magnesium Sulfate for the Management of Eclampsia and Pre-eclampsia: Some Economic and Cost Reflections, PowerPoint presented in 2007, posted December 2008 following request

Childhood immunisation against varicella zoster virus: Editorial, British Medical Journal, August 2008 (or toll free link)

Global Health Research Agenda, prepared following Oxford Conference on Innovation and Technology Transfer for Global Health in September 2007. The conference website, Innovation and Technology Transfer for Global Health, no longer exists and therefore the files have been given a section, below, on this webpage.

The Malaria Product Pipeline: Planning for the Future. Major report by Moran M., Guzman J., Ropars A., Jorgensen M., McDonald A., Potter S., and Haile-Selassie H. The George Institute for International Health and Global Forum for Health Research. With a colleague, Simone Ghislandi (see p. 93), we provided the portfolio simulation framework used in this report for projecting the future funding needs of the global malaria vaccine and drug pipeline, working out the gaps and how to make the pipeline more optimal. September 2007. See a ScienceDaily article about the findings of this report here.

Independent assessment of the case for investment in tuberculosis vaccines. Report prepared for Aeras Global TB Vaccine Foundation and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, July 2007.This report (and associated Aeras/Gates meeting in Washington at which I presented the findings) was an independent peer review of key evidence and provision of my own evidence during the negotiations between Aeras and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation over a $200m grant, at the time the largest grant by the Foundation to a PDP (Product Development Partnership). I am told that this report was important in identifying potential commercial partners for the new MVA85A TB vaccine candidate developed at the University of Oxford (see a press release here).

A Global Medical Research and Development Treaty: An answer to global health needs? International Policy Network Working Papers on Intellectual Property, Innovation and Health, June 2007

TB Drug Development Portfolio Figures May 2006, Report modelling TB drug portfolio figures for the TB Alliance. This supports ‘Developing Drugs for Tuberculosis’, February 2007, Science

The Science, Economics, and Politics of Malaria Vaccine Policy, Submission to UK Department for International Development APC consultation process and the Malaria Vaccine Technology Roadmap, and a Response to the Tremonti Report to G8 Finance Ministers.
With thanks to the US Council on Foreign Relations, for picking up on this report, and making it a 'Must Read' ("Seminal analysis and inquiries into foreign policy and national security issues"). Most recent version of full report: 14 April 2006. Report covered in Economics Focus of The Economist, March 2006. This report emphasised the importance of thinking of malaria vaccines (and, indeed, vaccines in general) as part of an integrated package of measures to tackle malaria and adjusting vaccine Target Product Profile (such as efficacy) accordingly, the need to think through the best way to minimise both the development and production costs of vaccines and ensure long-term supply, the need to greatly improve cost-effective evidence, the various tradeoffs between different vaccine goals, the importance of dealing with ‘risks’ appropriately, and a true sense of 'country' ownership of (and therefore a role in decision-making about) R&D and delivery programs. It also argued that the field needed to adopt a much broader focus for malaria vaccine development and to not narrow the search down too much, and emphasized the need to target a higher efficacy vaccine than that vaccine candidate taking all the policy attention (see recent, November 2009, developments in this direction here and here).

Executive Summary of "The Science, Economics, and Politics of Malaria Vaccine Policy"

Accelerating the Innovation of Vaccines: Can the Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise, Malaria Vaccine Initiatives, and Purchase Commitments Deliver? in Innovation Strategy Today (BioDevelopments International Institute, Cornell University, and the Biodesign Institute of Arizona State University) July 2005. Section 5, pp 154-164, ‘Collaborative Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise: Four Interlocking Components’ makes some tentative suggestions on the shape of a Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise; it also includes some early thinking about patent pooling for complimentary HIV vaccine patents, something now being tried by UNITAID for HIV drug patents. Section 4, pp 149-154, gives some background to the thinking; in particular, the section ‘Overlap and Need for Expanded Focus’ emphasises the importance of improving and deepening the scientific basis of HIV vaccine research – such as understanding the molecular details of HIV infection and the immune system response – and of broadening the approach to include ‘neglected vaccine concepts’, moving away from a concentration on vaccines based only on cell-mediated immunity, CMI. In recent years a consensus has grown in the field around these two views (totally independent of anything I ever wrote no doubt, based more on the sole searching after the failure in 2007 of a CMI vaccine candidate at a late stage of development).

The cost of R&D: How much money is needed to address the current need? PowerPoint presentation at Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) Campaign for Access to Essential Medicines, International Conference on Ensuring Innovation for Neglected Diseases, London, United Kingdom, 8 June 2005

Purchase Commitments for Vaccines: Their Uses and Their Limitations PowerPoint presentation at the Biodesign Institute, Arizona State University, 5 April 2005, updated 16 May 2005

Concerns Regarding "Making Markets for Vaccines" Submission to Commission on Intellectual Property Rights, Innovation and Public Health, WHO, 29 April 2005, Andrew Farlow, Donald Light, Richard Mahoney, and Roy Widdus

The Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise, Malaria Vaccines, and Purchase Commitments: What is the Fit? Submission to Commission on Intellectual Property Rights, Innovation and Public Health, WHO, 22 March 2005. An earlier, shorter, version of this paper was delivered to HM Treasury analyzing the creation of a "Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise" and the role and nature of purchase commitments within such a framework. The latter half suggests a blueprint for the "Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise" `i recently noticed this being used as a an early, key, reference in the Wikipedia entry on the Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise.

Executive Summary of "The Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise, Malaria Vaccines, and Purchase Commitments: What is the Fit?" 22 March 2005

An Analysis of the Problems of R&D Finance for Vaccines April 2004. Reposted March 2005. A PowerPoint presentation based on this paper for meetings in Malaysia (Neglected Diseases Group (NDG) Meeting, Universiti Sains Malaysia), Washington, London, and Austria is available on request

Capital Costs, Cost-Effectiveness of HIV APC, and Speed of Vaccine Development WHO Commission on Intellectual Property Rights, Innovation and Public Health Open Discussion Forum, 10 December 2004

The Lancet book review of "Strong Medicine" (Lancet pdf version) (plain pdf version) 4 December 2004

Costs of Monopoly Pricing under Patent Protection "Access to Medicines and the Financing of Innovations in Health Care" conference, The Program on Science, Technology, and Global Development at The Earth Institute at Columbia University, New York, December 2003

Tobin Tax: Alternative Finance for Health R&D? Presentation for the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Frati Dialogue, Bellagio, Italy, September 24-29, 2003. Contains an evaluation of the Tobin Tax as a mechanism to raise finance for health R&D

Aids and Sub-Saharan Africa February 2003. A few thoughts on President Bush's State of the Union pledge of $15 billion HIV/AIDS funding

Global economy, real estate markets, banking, emerging markets

I am working on a chapter ‘The role of indicators in the global financial crisis’, for a book project ‘A world of Indicators: the production of knowledge and justice in an interconnected world’ for Cambridge University Press.

Crash & Beyond: Causes and Consequences of the Global Financial Crisis: Book Oxford University Press, April 2013

A early opinion piece on the global financial crisis can be found here

The Global Financial Crisis: Causes and Cures Presentation at the International Consulting Economists' Association, The Institute of Commonwealth Studies, London, February 2009

Housing, consumption, and the economy: Why do house prices become misaligned, and what are the consequences?
Guest Lecture, The London Business School, 2 June 2005

Part Three: UK House Prices, Consumption and GDP in a Global Context January 2005. Recommended by Hamish McRae in the Independent on Sunday I am told by investment banking colleagues that this was very prescient and ‘got right many key points’ about the subsequent financial crash. Part Three explores a range of issues key to the global financial crisis of a few years later, including: the unsustainable imbalances in global financial flows, savings, consumption and government spending, particularly with respect to the US and China but also the UK; the overly-loose monetary policy; the disregard for risk that showed up in speculative investment in mortgage and housing markets in a ragne of countries and the overuse of debt-based finance on a global scale; the dangers when the financial bubble of the late 1990s shifted from being equity-based to become debt-based in the 2000s, and the way in which it would shift then to government balance sheets (a ‘shifting bubble’); the precarious short-term revolving nature of much mortgage activity and the potential for financial and real economic contagion to spread to the rest of the world from problems in banking related to the property market, and the way in which this would put the US and its mortgage banking market, but also that of countries like the UK, at the centre of a global downswing; the balance-sheet nature of the ensuing economic problems as households sought to deleverage and increase their savings at the same time as governments were much more fiscally burdened too; the need in advance to hold smaller budget deficits in developed economies to help cushion this impact when it came; the particular dangers for the UK because of a growing government deficit and shrinking cushion, that made the UK particularly vulnerable when correction eventually came; the unconventional monetary policy that would be needed when standard interest rate tools could not go below zero percent; and the knife-edge balance between inflation and deflation during the recovery phase.

Part Two: Bubbles and Buyers January 2004 version (updating of May 2003 version, prepared for Credit Suisse First Boston). Recommended by Martin Wolf in the Financial Times

Part One: UK House Prices: A Critical Assessment January 2004 version (updating of May 2003 version, prepared for Credit Suisse First Boston). Recommended by Martin Wolf in the Financial Times

Out of the blue, in April 2010 I was told that the article by Martin Wolf in the Financial Times that outlined the key arguments of Part One and Part Two of my analysis running up to the recent financial crisis caused British Prime Minister Tony Blair sufficient concern that he asked the UK Treasury for a full briefing note. This got some coverage here: A Prime minister who knows something about the economy? (“In fact, according to some documents teased out of the Treasury ... it turns out Blair was rather more worried about the state of the economy than you might have thought…It underlines the simple fact that the Treasury under Gordon Brown was blind to the possibility that things could go horribly wrong – even within the confines of Downing Street. It turns out no-one was allowed to challenge the ‘end to boom and bust’ trope – even Tony Blair himself”); here (which contains the Freedom Of Information request, that I knew nothing about, that led to this revelation, and also a link to the Treasury briefing); and here (the Treasury briefing, in its comments regarding first time buyers, is described as an “admission from the Treasury under Gordon Brown's reign as chancellor [that] runs counter to previous government rhetoric...etc.”). It is always reassuring to hear that people in high places get to hear about your work, less encouraging to hear that it didn’t make any difference!

Part Four: Risk premia in housing markets
Part Five: Global banking liquidity, mortgage markets and housing

Presentation: UK House Prices, Consumption and GDP in a Global Context, Conference hosted by John D Wood & Co. London, 20 January 2005

Slightly shortened versions of the following papers appeared for Oxford Analytica:

Bubbles and Emerging Market Crises November 2003

Is the US Heading for a Fiscal Crisis? November 2003

Emerging Markets: An assessment of the balance of emerging market risks and the sources of crises November 2003

Activities

Selected recent presentations, guest lectures, and meetings

February 2013: Accra, Ghana, meeting on dengue in Africa. I am also meeting colleagues in Ghana working on efforts to scale up renal transplant surgery in Africa.

July 2012,:Max-Planck-Institut für ethnologische Forschung, Halle, Germany, three-day workshop,‘Relocating Science and Technology. Global Knowledge, Traveling Technologies and Postcolonialism. Perspectives on Science and Technology Studies in the Global South’, participant.

July 2012: Büro für Technikfolgeabschätzung beim Deutsschen Budestag (TAB), Berlin. Meeting with TAB regarding a project of German and other academics (on which I am an external advisor) to advise the German Bundestag (parliament) on ‘innovative and alternative concepts for drug development to improve health in African countries’

June 2012: TDR‐WHO expert meeting in cooperation with the University of Freiburg, Germany on ‘Effective, affordable and evidence based dengue early warning and response systems: Country case studies for sharing experiences’. Chair of economics session.

November 2011 and November 2012: Lecture for the Human and Veterinary Vaccinology of the Oxford Vaccinology Programme of the Department of Continuing Education. 2012 session to be found here.

November 2011: Stockholm, European Scientific Conference on Applied Infectious Disease Epidemiology (ESCAIDE), 6-8 November. Invited plenary speech: Enhancing health and health equity through vaccination programmes, session on 'Economics and Societal Value of Vaccines'; I returned to the theme of the need for a higher-efficacy malaria vaccine goal and discussed progress on dengue vaccines. Conference sponsored by European Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (ECDC) and jointly organized by ECDC, EPIET (European Programme for Intervention Epidemiology), EAN (EPIET Alumni Network), TEPHINET EUROPE (Training Programs in Epidemiology and Public Health Interventions Network). (some slides had copyright images removed before going online).

October 2011: Freiberg IDAMS meeting.

June 2011: Wissenschaftscolleg zu Berlin, Colloquium (10 minute introduction, 50 minute presentation, one hour of questions) 'The Financial Crash: Causes, Responses, Consequences'.

October 2011: Max-Planck-Institut für ethnologische Forschung, Halle, Germany, conference: 'A World of Indicators: Knowledge Technologies of Regulation, Domination, Experimentation and Critique in an Interconnected World'. Presentation 'Science, Innovation and Global Health Policy: The Evolving Role of Indicators'.

May 2011: 5-day meeting at Wissenschaftscolleg zu Berlin, 'Caring for African Health Care: Reading Clinical Case Studies for Systemic Insights'. Meeting report Caring for African Health Care: Reading Clinical Case Studies for Systemic Insights (pp308-317) by Steven Feierman and Julie Livingston.

October 2010-July 2011:Wissenschaftscolleg zu Berlin Focus groups: Limits to Disease Control - Failures in Disease (convened by Janis Antonovics of the Univeristy of Virgina) and Professional Dilemmas of Medical Practice in Africa (convened by Steven Feierman of the University of Pennsylvania and Julie Livingston of Rutgers University). The first focus group was a tremendous help in developing my thinking on which vaccines are more and less likely to suffer long-term declines in population-level efficacy on account of evolution, and how packages of interventions might better work given the workings of evolution. The second group encouraged me even more to develop policy that better serves the needs of those delivering medical care in resource-poor settings, and introduced me to some astonishing people who somehow mix academic thinking with medical practice and daily life in very resource-poor settings.

June 2010, Oriel College Oxford. Stop TB Partnership Working Group on New Vaccines: Task Force on Economics and Product Profiles, Presentation: Financing for TB Vaccines in a Financially-Constrained World.

May-June 2010 (31 May-3 June) Panama City, Panama. TDR (UNICEF/UNDP/World Bank/WHO) Disease Reference Group (DRG) on Dengue and other Emerging Viral Diseases of Public Health Importance. Stream 4: health policy research contributing to adequate public health response. Presentation: Factors Leading to Success or Failure of National Programmes and Global Funding in Dengue.

2007-2010: My approach to global health issues is highly collaborative. One objective has been to share knowledge and learning across different groups working on similar themes; good practice can therefore be picked up, shared and encouraged, and less good approaches can be avoided and replaced. Just recently, this has been extremely valuable in my thinking about TB and malaria vaccines, drugs and diagnostics in particular. The research group held in-depth meetings with the Malaria Vaccine Initiative (MVI); International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI); Aeras Global TB Vaccine Foundation; Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics (FIND); International Partnership for Microbicides (IPM); TB Alliance; PATH (Human papillomavirus, meningitis, and Japanese encephalitis vaccine teams); Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative (DNDi); Novartis Institute for Tropical Diseases; Sanofi Pasteur; GlaxoSmithKline; InViragen; Hawaii Biotech; Merck Vaccines; Pfizer; WHO (Immunization Vaccines and Biologicals, and Initiative for Vaccine Research); GAVI Alliance; UNICEF; Oxford Insect Technologies (OXITEC); Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute; Lille University; Imperial College London; Spatial Ecology and Epidemiology Group, Zoology Department, Oxford; Atmospheric, Oceanic and Planetary Physics, Oxford; the Institute for Emergent Infections of Humans, Oxford Martin School; and other Oxford infectious disease mapping researchers.

December 2010: UK Department of Health, International Division, Stakeholder meeting ahead of WHO Executive Board meeting in January 2010.

2008-2009: Encouraged by senior colleagues in the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, NIH, WHO, industry, and academia (though not the business school where I was based), I encouraged the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to finally deal with PDVI, a failing PDP based inside the IVI in Korea, that had, in the words of leading Foundation figures, wasted large chunks of the money the Foundation had given it, mismanaged and bullied many grantees, slowed the advance of a portfolio of potential dengue vaccines, held back vital economic/impact work for at least five years, and failed to sufficiently advance an access agenda for dengue vaccines. For the first time, the Foundation held a competition to replace a PDP, removed managers, and set up a new collaboration, the DVI (that included parts of PDVI).

October 2009: Fondation Merieux, Veyrier-du-Lac, France. Second meeting of the Task Force on Economics and Product Profiles for new TB vaccines (WHO, Aeras Global TB Vaccine Foundation, and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation)

September 2009: Vice Chancellor’s Global Health Research Forum, University of Oxford: Presentation: ‘“Where’s all the money gone?” Financial crisis and global health spending: Priority setting past, present and future’

March 2009: Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), varicella zoster subgroup meeting, Department of Health, London

February 2009: International Consulting Economists' Association, The Institute of Commonwealth Studies, London. Presentation: ‘The Global Financial Crisis: Causes and Cures’

February 2009: G-FINDER (Global Funding of Innovation for Neglected Diseases), George Institute for international Health (project financed by Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation) report launch meeting, Royal College of Physicians, London. Short talk and panel member

December 2008: London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. First meeting of the Task Force on Economics and Product Profiles for new TB vaccines, presentation (WHO, Aeras Global TB Vaccine Foundation, and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation)

November 2008: Health Impact Fund meeting, Lincoln College, Oxford. Response presentation and panel discussion

November 2008: Zoology Dept, University of Oxford, ‘Science and Public Health Policy’ presentation and discussion

October 2008: Pfizer Inc Headquarters, New York, ‘Global Health Access: The Challenges of Finance and Sustainability’

November 2007: Organized a follow-up two-day meeting in Oxford pulling together two-dozen dengue modellers, in particular several groups in Oxford, economists, and researchers working on dengue burden of disease.

September 2007: ‘Oxford Conference on Innovation and Technology Transfer for Global Health’, inaugural conference ‘Bridging the Gap in Global Health Innovation — From Needs to Access’. Conference co-organiser, and speaker: ‘The intersection of economics and access’. Conference financially supported by Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

July 2007: Managua, Nicaragua. Americas Dengue Prevention Board inaugural meeting. Presentation and discussion: 'Dengue vaccine: An assessment of market, coordination, and risk factors’

July 2007: Aeras Global Vaccine Foundation, and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Presentation in Washington: ‘An Independent Assessment of Tuberculosis Vaccines: The Case for Investment’. 2.5 hour slot in an all-day Aeras and BMGF meeting to discuss the case for investment during Aeras grant renewal process

July 2007: 2020 Health. All-party (UK Parliament MPs and Lords) meeting, London. Discussant and (after the event) reviewer of report: ‘Modern Vaccines, Modern World’

June 2007: I organized and lead a day-long workshop pulling together three teams of dengue transmission modelers and several groups working on dengue economics (about 25 individuals from Switzerland, Lille, US, UK (London and Oxford)), to explore methological strengths and weaknesses, set up guidelines and standards for work on the economics of dengue vaccines, and to improve the consistency of dengue economics evidence to be used to guide vaccine introduction. The work was subsequently taken over by PDVI and then eventually DVI.

May 2007: MacArthur Foundation workshop on maternal mortality, University of Oxford. Social Science convenor. Presentation: ‘Magnesium Sulfate for the Management of Pre-Eclampsia and Eclampsia: Some Economic and Cost Reflections’

May 2007: WHO Geneva missions (China, South Korea, Germany, Brazil). Discussions.

May 2007: International Policy Network, Intercontinental Hotel, Geneva, Switzerland. Presentation based on paper being launched, and debate: ‘A Global Medical Research and Development Treaty: An answer to global health needs?’

April 2007: Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Workshop on Incentives for R&D, New York. A meeting to review recent work by the Office of Health Economics for BMGF on R&D incentives. Asked to provide a peer review for the meeting

April 2007: Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton, New Jersey. Public Lecture: ‘The State of Global Health Funding Initiatives’

April 2007: PDVI Board of Counsellors meeting, Honolulu, Hawaii: presentation

December 2006: Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Asia Dengue Prevention Board inaugural meeting: presentation

November 2006: Tanaka Business School, Imperial College, London, ‘Brainstorming meeting on universal access to HIV medicines’ (Imperial College London, Department for International Development [DfID], International HIV/AIDS Alliance, and Stop AIDS Campaign). Participant.

October 2006: Wellcome Trust, Vaccinology Frontiers Meeting, Hampshire, United Kingdom: ‘Bringing industry and academia together for the next generation of vaccines’. Presentation: ‘What are the economic drivers affecting vaccine R&D?’

September 2006-December 2008: Senior Research Fellow, Saïd Business School, Oxford. During this period I pulled together a research group of about ten people (seven full-ime and three part-time), was awarded $1.4 million in grant money, and led a $50 million bid for work on global health (which in the end nobody was granted). From 2009 my institutional focus shifted back to working with those engaging in Oxford's long-established and flourishing global health programs.

June 2006: Brussels. 'Connecting the Chain: A concerted "end to end" approach to the development of drugs and vaccines against poverty-related diseases'. High-level, invitational stakeholder forum (Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, European and Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership [EDCTP] and Netherlands-African Partnership for Capacity Development and Clinical Trials [NACCAP]). Invited participant

2006: I helped to build a small (three-person) research group working on how to use modern marketing techniques to reach the 'undelivered' with vaccines, and to push vaccine coverage above 90% (I argued it would help PDVI lead the field on an issue that was neglected but becoming increasingly important). This was several years ahead of its times. Four years later the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announced a goal of scaling up the delivery of life-savings vaccines in developing countries to 90% coverage, and six years later the World Health Assembly of the WHO endorsed a plan to increase coverage amongst other moves. The Oxford team dispersed and moved on.

May 2006: Advised TB Alliance on TB Drug Development Portfolio Figures. Analysis of Monte Carlo simulations of TB drug portfolio

April 2006: WIPO, the World Intellectual Property Organization, Geneva, Switzerland. Meeting: ‘Intellectual Property Management Strategies to Accelerate the Development and Access of Vaccines and Diagnostics: Case Studies on Pandemic Influenza, Malaria and SARS’. Invited participant/presenter. Paper produced from meeting here.

April 2006: Dengue Viral Entry. Three-day scientific workshop in Oxford on dengue virus (virus-cell interactions, recognition and responses, ligands and APC receptors, cell interactions, lessons from other viruses and prospects for Flaviviruses). Participant

September 2005: Malaria Vaccine Technology Roadmap, Oxford: Participant

June 2005: Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) Campaign for Access to Essential Medicines, International Conference on Ensuring Innovation for Neglected Diseases, London, United Kingdom. Presentation: ‘The Cost of R&D: How Much Money is Needed to Address the Current Need?’

June 2005: The London Business School. Guest Lecture: ‘Housing, Consumption, and the Economy: Why do House Prices Become Misaligned, and What are the Consequences?’

June 2005: Geneva, Switzerland, WHO Commission on Intellectual Property Rights, Innovation and Public Health, stakeholder meeting. Participant

April 2005: Biodesign Institute, Arizona State University, Pheonix, Arizona. Guest Lecture

January 2005: John D Wood & Co. London. Invited Paper and Guest Lecture: ‘UK House Prices, Consumption and GDP in a Global Context’

February 2004: University Sains Malaysia, Penang, Malaysia, Neglected Diseases Group (NDG) Meeting. Presentation/discussant

January 2004: Salzburg, Austria, Dutch Government and WHO. Presentation at Stakeholder meeting for 7th European Framework for projects in health (2007-2010)

December 2003: The Earth Institute at Columbia University, New York, The Program on Science, Technology, and Global Development. Conference ‘Access to Medicines and the Financing of Innovations in Health Care.’ Invited Presentation: ‘Costs of Monopoly Pricing Under Patent Protection’

September 2003: The Rockefeller Foundation and Consumer Project on Technology. Bellagio, Italy, Conference: ‘New Framework for Supporting Health Research and Development.’ Invited Participant and Presentation: ‘Alternative Finance Ideas for Health R&D’

July 2003: The Rockefeller Foundation, New York. Meeting on ‘Access to medicines and intellectual property’, covering a Review of TRIPS-Plus Provisions, TRIPS and Regional Markets, and Regional Pooled Procurement.

July 2003: The Ford Foundation, New York. Meeting on ‘International Trade and Intellectual Property Rules: Challenges to Safeguarding Public Health.’ Organised by The Ford Foundation, The Rockefeller Foundation, United Nations Development Program, and the Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs

July 2003: Oriel College, Oxford, Senior Library. During the celebrations to launch the Mandela Rhodes Foundation, organised a public lecture on ‘Democracy in South Africa’ for Patricia de Lille, leader of the Independent Democrats, a South African political party, who along with Nelson Mandela and others had helped to write the new Constitution of South Africa. The lecture, and discussion, was attended by about 100 Rhodes Scholars of all ages, including two US Senators. Organised meetings with a range of UK government Ministers and officials and with UK groups working on HIV.

May 2003: Credit Suisse First Boston, London, England. Invited presentation and paper: ‘UK House Prices: A Critical Assessment’

Other academic service, refereeing, advice, etc.

I try to be as generous as I possibly can be regarding the work of a very wide range of global health colleagues as we collectively explore how to improve and advance global health policy.

I have recently become adviser to a project to advise the German Parliament on 'innovative and alternative concepts for drug development to improve health in African countries'

I am (just recently) working with a number of colleagues (UK, Africa, WHO) on a project on renal failure and transplantation in very resource-poor settings in Africa. The work is at a very early stage, but is emblematic of the extreme challenges, yet possibilities, of health care under extreme resource constraints.

Co-organiser Oxford Conference on Innovation and Technology Transfer for Global Health (with the generous financial support of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation), and jointly in charge of conference dissemination strategy.

Task Force on Economics and Product Profiles of the Stop TB Working Group on New Vaccines (Aeras, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and WHO): Member, and member of subgroups ‘“Develop Target Product Profiles” and “Financing, and Advocacy; Validation of Market Estimates”. I was tasked with the job of scoping out the research strategy of the Task Force.

WHO Expert Working Group on R&D Financing: Expert testimony on evaluation framework, evaluation criteria and Inventory of financing proposals of the EWG. Over the years I have promoted the notion of policy makers looking at these issues through the lenses of ‘risk’ and ‘coordination’ and this is reflected here. My testimony is here.

Pharmaceutical R&D Policy Project, LSE (which moved to the George Institute for International Health) and the Health Policy Division of the George Institute for International Health, Australia; Help with developing modelling tools (especially portfolio analysis of malaria drugs and vaccines and thoughts on the G-Finder process, both financially supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation) and pre-publication review.

Dalberg, Global Development Advisors: Advice on research into funding mechanisms and R&D incentives for malaria (funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation). Independently reviewed the IFF-Nd (International Financing Facility for Neglected Disease) proposal when it was going through HM Treasury in 2007. Academic contributor to work on extensions of the principle of the ‘Affordable Medicines Facility for malaria’ (the financing mechanism to subsidize malaria ACTs globally implemented by the Global Fund with strong support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation) to other development topics inside and outside of global health. Advice on Fund for R&D in Neglected Diseases (FRIND).

Results for Development Institute: Early help thinking through how to set up rigorous and independent analysis for a three-year project funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation titled ‘Assessing Innovations in Global Health R&D Policy and Financing’. Project Page here. I hope to be able to make useful further contributions as the project progresses.

Office of Health Economics, London: Feedback on a selection of work, including independent peer review of R&D modelling by OHE for Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

The X PRIZE Foundation: Advice on the design of a prize for effective diagnosis of tuberculosis in the developing world. Planning grant to develop the prize provided by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

The World Economic Forum, i.e. ‘Davos’, Global Health Initiative, ''Tackling Tuberculosis: The Business Response' 2008, reviewed report for authors.

Aeras and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation: Independent peer review of TB vaccine market and investment case analysis, and submission of own analysis to help the Foundation make its TB vaccine funding decision.

I am currently heavily engaged in the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s efforts to improve the management and efficiency of the dengue vaccine space. Watch this space as they say!

TB Alliance: Analysis and advice regarding value of TB drugs portfolio and future funding needs.

Health2020: Paper on ‘Modern Vaccines.’ Contributor and referee.

WHO, UNDP, World Bank, DFID, UK Treasury, Médecins Sans Frontières, Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization, Oxfam, ActionAid. Advising various staff of these organisations on issues relating to the economics of global health and R&D.

At the moment I am working in particular with a wide range of colleagues in WHO, industry and academia on the idea of creating more rigorous and independent cost effectiveness analysis, and encouraging more decision-making capacity in countries themselves to use that analysis so that they have more influence over the funding decisions at the global level. Part of this effort involves thinking about better measurement of both inputs and health outcomes.

Routledge: Economic book referee

Oxford University Press: Economic book referee

Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI): Peer review analysis of cost effectiveness evidence submitted to JCVI

JCVI, Subcommittee on varicella zoster (chickenpox, shingles): Member

Economic Journal: Academic referee

The Lancet: Academic referee

PLOS Medicine: Academic referee

PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases: Academic Referee

Health Policy and Planning (LSHTM): Academic Referee

Oxford Review of Economic Policy: Academic Referee

Economic and Social Research Council: Research grant peer reviewer

National Institute for Health Research: Research grant peer reviewer

World Bank: Academic Referee

PLoS Medicine: Academic Referee

Antiviral Research: Academic peer-reviewer

British Council: Grant peer reviewer

Oxford Economics M.Phil. theses examiner

Oriel College, University of Oxford: Member of the Selection Committee for the Herbert and Ilse Frankel Studentship.

Centre for Global Development: insights, contributions and comments on front-loading finance into vaccines and other global health work.

Oxford Analytica: Articles and advising/refereeing: emerging markets; banking; the US fiscal position; pandemic flu.

Advice to various government officials, including from China, Italy, Holland, Germany, Korea, Brazil, Thailand, Malaysia, New Zealand, and the US.

Credit Suisse First Boston: Articles and advice on: financial bubbles; real estate

South African Competition Commission, and Consumer Project on Technology, Washington DC: Advice on submission to South African Competition Commission on the pricing of AIDS drugs in South Africa.

WHO Commission on Intellectual Property Rights, Innovation and Public Health: Extremely generous in giving feedback to others regarding their submissions to CIPIH, providing in the region of 150,000 words over two years (at one key meeting in June 2005, all four presentations in one session acknowledged Farlow's contribution).

Various biotech companies: Advised on strategic issues of companies researching into neglected diseases.

Liberal Democrat Party, UK: Although politically independent, advised on work of the Macroeconomics Policy Working Group.

Calvert Investments, advice to ethical investment initiative.

Teaching

Teaching at Oxford

These days I do only a very small amount of undergraduate teaching, and mostly concentrate on research.

Since 2007 I have lectured ‘Vaccine Deployment and Policies’ for the Vaccinology Module of the Masters of Science (MSc) in Global Health. For the past five years my lecture slides/notes have only been available on Oxford's internal weblearn system. In the face of numerous requests, and as an experiment, I am finally putting the slides online (January 2013), in the hope that others will find some value in them. The materiel is sourced from all over the place; if anyone finds material that they own and object to it being used in this way, please email me and I will amend, credit the source more comprehensively, or remove. My intention is not to offend or to take advantage, but to make a resource, that several generations of students have told me that have found very valuable, available to other students wherever they may be in the world.

Slides for this are gathered in the following batches:

Part 1: Overview, the global health context, Millennium Development Goals

Part 2: Background figures on vaccines, measles and vaccine success stories, vaccine needs from a global public health perspective

Part 3: Case studies Hep B, pneumococcal

Part 4: The economics of the vaccine market, size, growth of revenues, patterns of demand

Part 5: The vaccine research and development (R&D) process, and incentives

Part 6: Paying for vaccines, the vaccine decision process, GAVI, GAVI and the pneumococcal challenge

Part 7: GAVI resource gaps and GAVI phase 2

Part 8: GIVS (Global Immunization Vision and Strategy)

Part 9: Financial sustainability, IFFIm, AMC

Part 10: Pneumococcal and pandemic flu issues

Part 11: Malaria vaccine demand issues

Part 12: Some class questions

I have advised Oxford students and researchers on a wide range of global health research projects. Recent projects have included:

i) The R&D issues surrounding pediatric antiretrovirals for children with HIV;

ii) Vaccine strategies (in particular choice of vaccine) for global polio eradication;

iii) A comparative study of health system performance in several developing countries;

iv) The financial aspects of developing a telediagnostic kit and service for malaria and chikungunya infections in rural areas of Kenya;

v) Needle-free vaccine technologies;

vi) Global health IP issues;

vii) Product Development Partnerships, governance and incentive issues;

viii) Pneumococcal vaccines;

ix) The economics of thermostable vaccines;

x) Innovative’ global health financing.

As best I can, I also give feedback to students from outside Oxford who inquire about their global health research projects.

In 2004-2006, I was an Exam Moderator for the Prelims Economics component of the degrees of Philosophy, Politics & Economics, and History & Economics, at the Department of Economics, University of Oxford. Occasionally I am an M.Phil./M.Sc. thesis examiner in areas of my expertise.

I was in charge of Economics studies at Oriel College for six years till 2006, teaching both macroeconomics and microeconomics at all levels, before concentrating on my global health research. I previously taught (microeconomics, macroeconomics, industrial organisation, banking, and finance) at several other colleges of the University of Oxford: I was Tutor for Economics at Christ Church College, St. Edmund Hall, Hertford College, Worcester College, and Keble College.

I was part-time research officer for a year at Oxford's (then) Institute of Economics and Statistics.

Recent media and public profile

If quoting a position being taken by Andrew Farlow, please refer to the original works above (this section is not up-to-date)

British Medical Journal, 4 November 2009 (web)

Financial Times, 4 February 2009 (web)

Daily Telegraph, 14 November 2008 (web)

British Medical Journal, Editorial, August 2008 (web)
Financial Times Weekend, 25 January 2008 (web) Financial Times Weekend, 25 January 2008 (MHTML)
Wall Street Journal, 31 December 2007 (web)

Pharmalot, 20 August 2007 (web)
Nature, 16 August 2007 (web)

Wall Street Reporter, Biomed, March 2007 (web)
Science Magazine, letter, 23 February 2007 (web) Science Magazine, letter, 23 February 2007 (pdf)
Scientific American, 12 Feb 2007 (web)

Astra Zeneca, Italia, 22 January 2007 (web)
TIME Magazine Global Health, 19 July 2006 (web)
Accra Mail, Ghana, 17 July 2006 (web) Accra Mail, Ghana, 17 July 2006 (web, allAfrica.com)
Straights Times, Singapore, 15 July 2006 (web) Straights Times, Singapore, 15 July 2006 (web, International Policy Network)
Cape Times, South Africa, 14 July 2006 (web) Cape Times, South Africa, 14 July 2006 (web, International Policy Network)
The Economist, Economics Focus, 25 March 2006 (web) The Economist, Economics Focus, 25 March 2006 (pdf)
Pharma Marketletter, 20 February 2006 (pdf)
The Independent on Sunday, 19 February 2006 (pdf)
Financial Times, 16 February 2006 (web)
The Times, 13 February 2006 (web)
Slate magazine, 29 December 2005 (web)
Vanguardia, Mexico, November 2005 (web)
La Prensa Gráfica, San Salvador, November 2005 (web)
Newsweek, 14 November 2005 (web)
Property Investor News, September 2005 (web) or Property Investor News, September 2005 (pdf)
Financial Times, 17 September 2005 (web)
Financial Times, Analysis, 30 August 2005 (web)
Sina, China, 10 August 2005 (MHTML)
Financial Times, Letters Page, 24 June 2005 (web) or Financial Times, Letters Page, 24 June 2005 (pdf)
Pattaya Mail, Thailand, 12 August 2004 (web) or Pattaya Mail, Thailand, 12 August 2004 (pdf)
The Economist, 12 June 2004 (web) or The Economist, 12 June 2004 (pdf)
The Oxford Times, 14 May 2004 (pdf)
The Financial Times, 16 April 2004 (pdf)
The New Straits Times, Malaysia, 14 March 2004 (pdf)
The Guardian, 15 May 2003 (web) or The Guardian, 15 May 2003 (pdf)
The Independent, 14 May 2003 (pdf)
Börse Online, 30 January 2003 (pdf)
The Estates Gazette, 11 January 2003 (pdf)
The Sunday Times, 8 December 2002 (pdf)
The Financial Times, Comment and Analysis, 29 November 2002 (pdf)

Oxford Conference on Innovation and Technology Transfer for Global Health

In September 2007 I helped to organise an 'inaugural' conference on innovation, technology transfer and global health, which bought together 100 hand-picked, highly diverse, key thinkers and practitioners in global health. Together with Gill Samuels, Foundation Chair of the Global Forum for Health Research, based in Geneva, I was in charge of gathering the lessons and disseminating the findings. Most of the work for write-up was done by Rachelle Harris and Sarah Miller. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation generously provided funds for thirty delegates from developing and middle-income countries so that the discussion was firmly rooted in their experiences. With the kind permission of his widow, we called these supported delegates ‘Sanjaya Lall Fellows’ in memory of Oxford economist Sanjaya Lall. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation also generously provided funds to cover the conference write-up, website, long-term dissemination of findings, and the development of a future research agenda. The delegates met for four days in the Business School, and were housed in Oriel College.

With the support of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, a purpose-built webpage was set up, subsumed under the business school website,. After this was switched off, at the end of a year, the files were transferred here for safe-keeping. If funding and logistics ever permit, a follow-on conference will be arranged and the website will be re-instated.

IN MEMORY OF SANJAYA LALL:

Sanjaya Lall, A primer on industrial and technological innovation

MAIN CONFERENCE FILES:

Conference Objectives

Conference Schedule

Conference Themes: A research agenda for the future

Final Report Executive Summary

Conference Final Report

List of Delegates and their Affiliations

List of Sanjaya Lall Fellows

Post-conference Testimonials

REPORTS ON INDIVIDUAL SESSIONS: