Work

Closing the gap in HCV care: strategic collaboration between industry, academic, community, and nonprofit researchers

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: Despite intensive efforts to eliminate the hepatitis C virus (HCV), approximately 50 million people worldwide have an active infection, and about 1 million new cases emerge annually 1 , 2 . In 2016, the World Health Organization (WHO) identified HCV as a major public health threat and set a target to eliminate it by 2030. However, insufficient funding for HCV research and health care delivery remains a barrier to achieving HCV elimination 1 . Collaboration between industry, academic institutes, communities, and nonprofit organizations offers a promising solution 3 . Industry companies can provide vital strategic and financial support, including research resources, equipment, patient care through screening and treatment access, conference attendance funding, collaborative opportunities, and publishing strategies 4 . Nonetheless, such partnerships face challenges, in part due to the negative perception of industry involvement in academic and/or community health research. To overcome this barrier, transparency between industry, academic institutes, communities, and nonprofit organizations is essential, ensuring independence in research design and interpretation while maintaining flexibility to adapt research based on patient recruitment and data outcomes.

Source: npj gut and liver.

DOI: 10.1038/s44355-025-00028-w

Authors: Nancy Reau, Jeffrey V. Lazarus, Sunil Solomon, Alessandra Mangia, Ming-Lung Yu, Homie Razavi