Focus Areas

Climate Change

Climate Resilient Crops

Climate change is expected to significantly reduce crop yields, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa. To help reduce these negative effects, we are designing a pull mechanism that will incentivize research and development on and scale-up of heat-resilient crops in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Decarbonizing Cement

Cement is one of the world’s most carbon intensive materials. We are exploring ways to incorporate the social cost of carbon into public cement production, thereby helping to correct the market failure that cement producers and purchasers do not fully internalize the social costs of the pollution they create.

Enteric Methane Removal

Early research suggests that vaccines might be able to reduce enteric methane  – methane emitted by ruminant animals such as cows – by up to 20-30%. We are working to develop a mechanism to cost-effectively incentivize private firms to invest in developing these solutions.

Greenhouse Gas Removal

Greenhouse gas removal is a classic public good–the benefits accrue to the whole world. We are exploring using a variety of pull mechanisms–such as auctioned put options and procurement auctions–to bring the price down to a level where they can be deployed at scale.

Pandemics

Antimicrobial resistance diagnostics

Antimicrobial resistance causes over a million global deaths annually, driven in part by a lack of timely diagnostic tests. MSA is designing an advanced market commitment to incentivize the innovation of neonatal sepsis diagnostics for low- and middle-income countries to combat AMR.

Broad-spectrum Antivirals

We are designing a pull mechanism to spur the innovation of platform-based broad-spectrum antivirals for pandemic preparedness. These drugs could offer breakthrough treatment options that can effectively combat a wide range of viral pathogens, including both known and future threats.

Pandemic Preparedness Intervention Modeling

Severe pandemic outbreaks like COVID-19 are expected to occur with non-negligible frequency. To inform preparedness policy, we are modeling the benefits and costs of alternative preparedness interventions to characterize their comparative and complementary returns.

Repurposing Generic Drugs

Due to a lack of financial incentive, many potential uses for generic drugs go under-explored. We are designing pull funding mechanisms that can help incentivize firms to discover new ways generic drugs can address important health needs.