Morning Briefing

"The U.S. government is the largest funder of global health research and development [R&D] in the world, spending $12.7 billion over the past 10 years," according to a report (.pdf) released by the Global Health Technologies Coalition (GHTC) and Policy Cures on Friday, United Press International reports. The report, titled "Saving Lives and Creating Impact: Why investing in global health research works," "found each year the U.S. government provided around 45 percent of the total global investment and 70 percent of all government investment worldwide in global health research and development," the news service writes. "The U.S. funding helped lead to the development of more than half of the 45 new health products -- including vaccines, drugs, diagnostics -- in the last decade that have been used to save lives around the world, the report said," according to UPI.