PATH

PATH is a US-based, international nonprofit organization that transforms global health through innovation. The organization takes an entrepreneurial approach to developing and delivering high-impact, low-cost solutions, from lifesaving vaccines and devices to collaborative programs with communities.PATH has worked in China since 1979, partnering with contraceptive factories to modernize their facilities. As part of the United Nations Population Fund’s China program, PATH’s early input aimed to improve the quality of contraceptives supplied by China’s family planning authorities. This work led to initiatives seeking to improve reproductive health services offered by the country’s family planning and maternal and child health programs. PATH’s current projects in China focus on vaccines and immunization, women’s health, and tuberculosis (TB).

Working with subsidiaries of the China National Biotec Group, PATH is developing new rotavirus and pneumococcal vaccines to prevent deaths from diarrhea and pneumonia—the two leading killers of young children worldwide—and increasing developing-country access to Japanese encephalitis vaccine. Japanese encephalitis kills or disables thousands of people in Southeast Asia and the Western Pacific each year. To promote Chinese women’s health, economic empowerment, and life skills, PATH is creating a comprehensive approach to address these issues, including a curriculum and supportive materials for use with different audiences.

From 2007 to 2010, PATH partnered with the China Family Planning Association and its affiliates to foster positive notions of masculinity among almost 6,000 vocational students and young factory workers in and around the city of Chongqing. These young men learned how to be more supportive companions to the women and girls in their lives. With the Shanghai Dahua Medical Apparatus Company, PATH is making a second-generation female condom commercially available and is building a comprehensive global regulatory and market introduction plan for the product. PATH, the Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics, and the China/Hong Kong Supranational Reference Laboratory are working together on the TB New Diagnostics Demonstration Project, which is determining the potential of five innovative tools: iLED microscopy to improve the sensitivity of microscopy; a molecular line probe assay for the rapid diagnosis of multidrug-resistant TB; a rapid and novel molecular test called loop-mediated isothermal amplification technology for the rapid diagnosis of all forms of pulmonary TB; a gene chip technology-based rapid diagnosis of multidrug-resistant TB; and Gene Xpert diagnostic technology for TB.

In 2010, PATH’s total revenue was USD 282 million. Of this, approximately 63 percent was grants from private foundations, 24 percent was awards from the US government, 9 percent was awards from other governments and multilateral development agencies, and 4 percent was from individuals, investments, and corporations.