the institute for
OneWorld Health
not-for-proft
Drugmaking
fOundEr and bOard Chair: Victoria Hale
ten years ago, victoria Hale wrote a manifesto targeting fve diseases in need of drug
development and turned it into a business
plan for the frst pharmaceutical not-for-proft in the united states. today, her organization, the institute for OneWorld Health,
is on the verge of proving that its no-proft/
no-loss model can work. its frst drug,
paromomycin—a treatment for visceral
leishmaniasis, an illness spread by sand fies
that mostly aficts the poorest of the poor—
is months from completing its fnal stage of
clinical trials. up next: malaria. Backed
by a $42.6 million grant from the Gates
Foundation, One World Health aims to
create and market semisynthetic artemisinin,
a key malaria-fghting ingredient that’s
in short supply. —JV
tHe ACuMen Fund
PorTFolIo DATA
MAnAgeMen T SySTeM
CEO: Jacqueline Novogratz, CiO: Brian Trelstad
how do investors make
smart choices without
data or measuring tools?
answer: they can’t. So
the acumen fund, led by
Ceo Jacqueline novogratz,
is launching the Portfolio
data management System
for donors and philanthropic investors. developed with Google engineers’ pro bono support,
PdmS standardizes social
and fnancial metrics,
allowing donors to compare the impact of different
projects they support—say,
the $1 million for mosquito
nets versus the $1 million
for a clean-water project. “if
what we are doing is a real
innovation in philanthropy
and development assis-
tance, then we should have
evidence,” Cio Brian
trelstad explained in the
mit journal Innovations.
the second phase of
PdmS, launching in July
2009, will pool data across
institutions, allowing
an unprecedented level
of comparison.
—Anne C. Lee
December 2008 / January 2009 Fast company 115
