News – Duke Global Health Innovation Center

23Oct 2026 by Jennifer Larson Sawin

New Rapid Systematic Review on COVID-19

News, Published Paper

View full publication Summary: A vaccine is only as effective as the healthcare system that gets it to people. A newly published rapid systematic review from Duke GHIC and co-authors builds on prior collaboration with the World Health Organization’s Department of Immunization, Vaccines and Biologicals, and the International Vaccine Access Center at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health to examine lessons from the global COVID-19 vaccine rollout, from accelerating vaccine access to understanding the systems and strategies needed for effective delivery. The findings reinforce a critical lesson: developing an effective health product is only part of the challenge. Infrastructure, real-time data, trained personnel, and regulatory agility all influence whether health innovations reach people efficiently and equitably. For health innovators and decision-makers, the takeaway is clear: plan for the delivery…

12Oct 2026 by Jennifer Larson Sawin

Marking 15 years: Duke Global Health Innovations Center and Innovations in Healthcare celebrate!

Events, News

The agenda was full, the sky was blue, and the people were energetic! From October 7-9, 2026, innovators and friends from around the world came to celebrate Innovations in Healthcare turning 15 and Duke Global Health Innovations Center turning 10. (Did you follow our live tweets?) We are immensely grateful to those who planned, arranged visas and transport links to travel from afar, and helped us reflect on what we've learned and how those lessons will propel us forward. Stay tuned for a fuller reflection on our time together.

07Oct 2026 by Jennifer Larson Sawin

We’re hiring: Advocacy Lead

News

We’re hiring: Advocacy Lead, ALIGN Consortium How can countries make faster, more effective, and more sustainable decisions about introducing new health innovations? The ALIGN Consortium is working with governments, partners, and stakeholders across Africa to strengthen the systems that support health product innovation, prioritization, and introduction. To support this work, we are seeking a dynamic Advocacy Lead to help shape and advance ALIGN’s influence agenda. This individual will work across a diverse consortium of partners to translate evidence and country experience into compelling advocacy, thought leadership, stakeholder engagement, and policy influence efforts. We’re looking for someone who can: Build relationships across governments, funders, regional institutions, and global health organizations Translate technical evidence into clear, actionable messages Elevate government voices and country experience in global discussions Develop impactful advocacy and…

01Oct 2026 by Jennifer Larson Sawin

The New “LLMs”: How Long-Lasting Mechanisms for Decision-making Can Turn AI Investment into Lasting Impact

Blog

Authors: Heather Lanthorn, Joao Ricardo Nickenig Vissoci, Krishna Udayakumar Key Takeaways Accelerating AI investment amid shrinking health aid creates new opportunities and new challenges. While new commitments are promising, they are multi-year investments that depend on rapidly eroding health systems and a smaller workforce. Country-aligned investments can still create silos. Governments must integrate donor-funded AI investments into a sovereign agenda, national plans, and budgets—and retain the authority to redirect, sequence, or decline them. AI tools will make evidence more accessible and choices more plentiful; humans must still make tough decisions. Governments need pipeline visibility and durable decision mechanisms to compare AI tools with one another and with other health priorities. AI can strengthen public judgment; it cannot replace the people accountable for exercising it. AI investments must strengthen long-lasting mechanisms…

28Jul 2026 by Jennifer Larson Sawin

“The Compass” Newsletter: updates from the ALIGN Consortium

News

"The Compass" Newsletter: Sharing news from the ALIGN Consortium and Beyond With so much learning on national innovation prioritization and introduction across the ALIGN Consortium and beyond, we figured it was time to launch a newsletter. Why did we dub it "The Compass"? Because a compass offers direction without telling you where to go. That's what the newsletter aims to do, along with the Consortium at large: As governments face an expanding pipeline of health innovations and increasingly difficult decisions about what to prioritize, our goal is to share the evidence, experiences, and lessons that help countries navigate choices on their own terms. Subscribe here for future issues of "The Compass." Interested in longer-form learning and insights? Check out the ALIGN Consortium's Substack: The "ALIGN Exchange." In the meantime, catch…

15Jul 2026 by Jennifer Larson Sawin

ALIGN Case Studies – Full Series (Maintenant disponible en français!)

Case Studies, News

The series is produced by the ALIGN Consortium as part of our shared learning agenda. Each case study—featuring Thailand (FR | Thaïlande), the Netherlands (FR | Pays-Bas), and Ghana (FR | Ghana)—examines how a particular country has navigated the persistent challenge of introducing new health innovations—how it evaluates, prioritizes, finances, and sustains them within real fiscal and political constraints. Our aim is not to rank systems or prescribe a single model, but to understand how reform actually unfolds: what enables it, what constrains it, and what does and does not transfer across contexts. These cases inform ALIGN’s work alongside national partners and are offered in the spirit of mutual learning. We welcome reactions, corrections, and counter-examples from colleagues who know these systems first-hand.

15Jul 2026 by Jennifer Larson Sawin

Case Study Series – the Netherlands

Case Studies, News

📄 Download the full Netherlands case study. (FR | Pays-Bas) Also in this series: Ghana (FR | Ghana) and Thailand (FR | Thaïlande). Health leaders in all health systems must make critical decisions about which products―including diagnostics, medical devices, medicines, and vaccines―and services to provide within the constraints of their health budget. Between the global pipeline that brings technologies to market and the national systems that must deliver them at scale lies a critical inflection point: health innovation introduction. Prioritization―which often includes health technology assessment (HTA) processes―is an essential function of innovation introduction, as are the coordinated set of national and subnational processes through which innovations are prepared for sustained, scaled access (e.g., regulatory review, procurement, supply chain planning, etc). The Netherlands offers a case of disciplined innovation introduction in…

15Jul 2026 by Jennifer Larson Sawin

Case Study Series – Ghana

Case Studies, News

📄 Download the full Ghana case study (FR | Ghana). Also in this series: Thailand (FR | Thaïlande) and the Netherlands (FR | Pays-Bas). Health leaders in all health systems must make critical decisions about which products―including diagnostics, medical devices, medicines, and vaccines―and services to provide within the constraints of their health budget. Between the global pipeline that brings technologies to market and the national systems that must deliver them at scale lies a critical inflection point: health innovation introduction. Prioritization―which often includes health technology assessment (HTA) processes―is an essential function of innovation introduction, as are the coordinated set of national and subnational processes through which innovations are prepared for sustained, scaled access (e.g., regulatory review, procurement, supply chain planning, etc). Every health system faces difficult choices about which innovations to…

15Jul 2026 by Jennifer Larson Sawin

Case Study Series – Thailand

Case Studies, News

📄 Download the full Thailand case study. (Also in this series: Ghana and the Netherlands.) Health leaders in all health systems must make critical decisions about which products―including diagnostics, medical devices, medicines, and vaccines―and services to provide within the constraints of their health budget. Between the global pipeline that brings technologies to market and the national systems that must deliver them at scale lies a critical inflection point: health innovation introduction. Prioritization―which often includes health technology assessment (HTA) processes―is an essential function of innovation introduction, as are the coordinated set of national and subnational processes through which innovations are prepared for sustained, scaled access (e.g., regulatory review, procurement, supply chain planning, etc). Thailand’s approach to health product prioritization―among the most fully institutionalized in middle-income countries―is anchored in the Health Intervention and…

29Apr 2026 by Jennifer Larson Sawin

The ALIGN Market Intelligence Hub – White Paper

News, Our Reports, White Paper

Health leaders, particularly those in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), face a structural gap between the rapid pace of health innovation and the ability of their countries to anticipate, prioritize, finance, and introduce new products effectively and efficiently. Decisions about adopting devices, diagnostics, therapeutics, and vaccines are often made reactively, with limited visibility into product supply (new emerging products, pipelines, costs, regulatory timelines, delivery requirements), health system capacity, and local context, including demand. Yet such visibility is key to country-led improved health product prioritization and introduction decisions. This paper, developed by the ALIGN Consortium, announces a tool to address the gap between the possible pipeline and realized rollout of health products. ALIGN Market Intelligence Hub is a decision-support tool designed to transform fragmented data on health products into actionable prioritization and…