Fostering innovation in vector control: Partnering to get life-saving interventions rapidly from bench to impact

Dr Nick Hamon. CEO of the Innovative Vector Control Consortium (IVCC)

 

IVCC is a Product Development Partnership (PDP) of industry, academia and other public health stakeholders that facilitates the development, delivery and impact of novel and improved vector control tools and solutions in challenged markets to combat the rapidly growing problem of insecticide resistance. Although primarily focused on malaria eradication, IVCC is also working on vector control solutions for neglected tropical diseases such as Zika and dengue. IVCC was originally started in 2005 at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine with a $50m grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and is now also supported by DFID (UK Department for International Development), USaid, SDC (Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation), DFAT (Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade: Indo-Pacific Centre for Health Security), UNITAID and The Global Fund.

In April 2018 at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in London, senior leadership from the major agrochemical companies signed the Declaration for Vector Control.  Eight months later at the World Economic Forum in Davos, IVCC launched ‘ZERO by 40’,  a unique partnership between the world’s leading agrochemical companies, with the potential to accelerate the world towards malaria eradication.

Nick has over 30 years international experience working at the interface of science, innovation and business sustainability. A native of the UK, prior to joining IVCC in 2013, Nick lived in the US working for Fortune 500 companies such as Bayer, Aventis and Rhone-Poulenc, involved in new product and business development in agriculture, public health and environmental science. Nick has a PhD in insect ecology and is an adjunct professor of entomology at North Carolina State University. When not travelling for IVCC, Nick attempts to balance his time between his family in Chapel Hill, North Carolina and the IVCC in Liverpool.