Published 12 November 2008, doi:10.1136/bmj.a2236
Cite this as: BMJ 2008;337:a2236

Feature

Profile

Pipe dreamer

Faisal Islam, economics correspondent

1 Channel 4 News, London

faisal.islam@itn.co.uk

Tachi Yamada, president of the Gates Foundation global health programme, talks to Faisal Islam about his efforts to redirect drug research

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Pipelines are often controversial constructs. They crisscross land and sea gushing with dirty black gold, and wars are routinely fought over their politics. But the world’s most important pipeline isn’t visible. It is the pipeline of drugs that should save and improve the lives of billions of people. But until now this pipeline has been routed entirely to maximise return for the shareholders of large drug companies rather than to save as many lives as possible.

Tachi Yamada may hold the key to a historic re-routing of this pipeline. As president of the global health programme at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation he has the financial firepower of the world’s first and third richest men behind him, and the experience of creating one of the world’s biggest pipelines at GlaxoSmithKline. Two years after joining the Gates Foundation, he has just embarked on an epic struggle with tobacco companies, is . . . [Full text of this article]


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to StumbleUpon StumbleUpon   Add to Technorati Technorati    What's this?

Rapid Responses:

Read all Rapid Responses

Beware of Tobacco
Hugh Mann
bmj.com, 20 Nov 2008 [Full text]
Access jobs at BMJ Careers
Whats new online at Student BMJ