The International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers & Associations is the global non-profit NGO representing the research-based pharmaceutical industry, including the biotech and vaccine sectors. Its members comprise 25 leading international companies and 45 national and regional industry associations covering developed and developing countries. The industry’s R&D pipeline contains hundreds of new medicines and vaccines being developed to address global disease threats, including cancer, heart disease, HIV/AIDS and malaria. The IFPMA Clinical Trials Portal (www.ifpma.org/ClinicalTrials), the IFPMA’s Ethical Promotion online resource (www.ifpma.org/EthicalPromotion/) and its Developing World Health Partnerships Directory (www.ifpma.org/HealthPartnerships) help make the industry’s activities more transparent. The IFPMA supports a wide range of WHO technical activities, notably those relating to medicine efficacy, quality and safety, and coordinates industry participation in the WHO IMPACT initiative to combat counterfeit medicines. It also provides the secretariat for the International Conference on Harmonisation of Technical Requirements for Registration of Pharmaceuticals for Human Use (ICH).
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The H5N1 pandemic threat has caused a vast increase in funding to influenza research.
The IFPMA's research-based vaccine manufacturing members are conducting a growing number of clinical trials of 'prototype' influenza vaccines, designed to counter to the threats of avian and pandemic influenza.[1]