There is a deficit between existing levels of paediatric clinical research in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) and what is warranted based on the disease burden in children in these countries. Lack of market protections, low ability to pay and cost-based pricing are key commercial barriers to industry-funded paediatric research and access to paediatric formulations of therapeutics in LMICs. Individual patient data meta-analysis (IPD-MA) taking advantage of existing clinical trials, enabled by data sharing, is one potential tool to bridge the research gap in a cost-effective and efficient way. Recent IPD-MAs of paediatric antimalarial drug safety and efficacy enabled by the WorldWide Antimalarial Resistance Network (WWARN), part of the Infectious Diseases Data Observatory (IDDO), demonstrate the feasibility of this approach.
McElwee et al. (Fri,) studied this question.