Background
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is the UN’s global development network, advocating for change and connecting countries to knowledge, experience and resources to help people build a better life. We are on the ground in 170 countries and territories, working with governments and people on their own solutions to global and national development challenges to help empower lives and build resilient nations.
HIV, Health and Development
UNDP’s work on HIV, health and development leverages the organization’s core strengths and mandates in human development, governance and capacity development to complement the efforts of specialist health-focused UN agencies. UNDP delivers three types of support to countries in HIV, health and development.
First, UNDP helps countries to mainstream attention to HIV and health into action on gender, poverty and the broader effort to achieve and sustain the Sustainable Development Goals. For example, UNDP works with countries to understand the social and economic factors that play a crucial role in driving health and disease, and to respond to such dynamics with appropriate policies and programmes outside the health sector. UNDP works to help countries respond to the evolving burden of disease by promoting a health-in-all sectors approach, with a recognition that what happens in sectors such as labour, finance and education may have as much bearing on health status as the levels of investment in the health sector itself.
Second, UNDP works with partners to address the interactions between governance, human rights and health responses. Sometimes this is done through focused or specialized programmes, such as promoting attention to the role of legal environments (law and access to justice) in facilitating stronger HIV responses, including the use of flexibilities in intellectual property and human rights law to lower the cost of drugs and diagnostics and to increase access to HIV-related treatment. Beyond these focused efforts, UNDP plays a key role in ensuring attention to HIV and health within broader governance and rights initiatives, including support to district and municipal action for development, strengthening of national human rights institutions and increasing access to justice for marginalized populations.
Third, as a trusted, long-term partner with extensive operational experience, UNDP supports countries in effective implementation of complex, multilateral and multi-sectoral health projects, while simultaneously investing in capacity development so that national and local partners can assume these responsibilities over time. The UNDP-Global Fund partnership is an important part of this work, facilitating access to resources for action on SDG 3.4 by countries that face constraints in directly receiving and managing such funding. Another related collaboration is that of the Access and Delivery Partnership (ADP), which is implemented by the UNDP, the Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases at the World Health Organization (WHO/TDR) and PATH. Working together, the ADP partners will leverage the expertise within each organization to provide the full range of technical skills necessary to strengthen capacity in LMICs, and work towards the achievement of SDG 3; including towards the target of eliminating the epidemics of HIV, TB, malaria and NTDs by 2030.
The Access and Delivery Partnership
Led and coordinated UNDP, and the ADP is a five-year (2013-2018) project that aims at enhancing capacities of LMICs to access and introduce new health technologies for TB, malaria and NTDs. New health technologies are broadly defined as drugs, diagnostic tools and vaccines that are relevant for the prevention, treatment or cure of TB, malaria and NTDs, but are not yet available for market introduction of have not been introduced in LMICs.
While new health technologies can offer the promise of significant and positive health outcomes, the access to, and effective introduction of, such health technologies may also contribute to increased pressures on resource-limited health system. The introduction of new health technologies can place additional requirements or burdens on the drug regulatory systems, supply and distribution networks, as well as necessitate health personnel training. Accordingly, the ADP will focus on building capacity of LMIC stakeholders to enable the development of the systems and processes required to effectively access new health technologies, and introduce them to populations in need.
Duties and Responsibilities
Scope of work:
The assignment follows up on the working document, “A Pipeline Analysis of New Products for Malaria, Tuberculosis and Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs)”, which was published August 2016. Since information and data in the pipeline analysis was current as of July 2015, the objective of this assignment is to update and elaborate on significant developments in the pipeline of new health technologies for TB, malaria and NTDs.
Under the overall supervision of the Programme Advisor, the Consultant will be responsible for the following activities:
- Collect, review and analyze data, including from relevant literature review and informant interviews, for up-to-date information on the health technology pipeline for TB, malaria and NTDs;
- Conduct a patent search on list of identified pharmaceutical products to determine their patent status within a list of specified countries;
- Review and analyze the data to prepare a patent landscape of the pharmaceutical products in the specified countries; and
- Prepare relevant knowledge products as the deliverables under the assignment.
Expected Outputs and Deliverables
The deliverables expected under this assignment are as follows:
- Prepare an analysis of new TB regimens and diagnostic tools, including those in the health technology pipeline, with a view to highlighting the new and recent treatment regimens and diagnostic tools, as well as the requirements for effective their introduction and use in LMICs;
- Prepare a discussion paper outlining approaches and challenges in the selection, regulation and introduction of diagnostic tools for TB, malaria and NTDs, including those in the health technology pipeline;
- Prepare a report on the patent landscape of identified pharmaceuticals to determine their patent status in specified countries. The list of pharmaceuticals and countries will be identified and agreed between UNDP and consultant, prior to the start of the work.
Institutional Arrangement
The consultant will regularly evaluate progress in meeting the specific deliverables with the Programme Advisor of the ADP.
Duration
The duration of the assignment is 12 months, from 15 August 2017 – 14 August 2018. The substantive component of the assignment is expected to take maximum 90 working days to complete.
Duty Station
The assignment is home-based with no travel required.
Competencies
Corporate Competencies:
- Demonstrates integrity by modelling the UN’s values and ethical standards;
- Promotes the vision, mission, and strategic goals of UNDP;
- Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability;
- Treats all people fairly without favouritism.
Technical Competencies:
- Analytic capacity and demonstrated ability to process, analyse and synthesise complex, technical information;
- Proven ability to support the development of high quality knowledge and training materials, and to train technical teams;
- Proven experience in the developing country context and working in different cultural settings.
Communication:
- Communicate effectively in writing to a varied and broad audience in a simple and concise manner.
Professionalism:
- Capable of working in a high pressure environment with sharp and frequent deadlines, managing many tasks simultaneously;
- Excellent analytical and organizational skills.
Teamwork:
- Projects a positive image and is ready to take on a wide range of tasks;
- Focuses on results for the client;
- Welcomes constructive feedback.
Required Skills and Experience
REQUIREMENTS FOR EXPERIENCE AND QUALIFICATIONS
Educational Qualifications:
- An advanced degree in pharmaceutical sciences, medicine or public health, and a knowledge of at least one of the other substantive areas
Professional Experience:
- A minimum of 8 years’ relevant work experience in the areas of pharmaceutical policy, procurement or regulation, intellectual property rights, and/or public health and treatment access
- Previous experience of working with the UN and other multilateral organizations in the areas of pharmaceutical policy, procurement or regulation, and/or public health and treatment access is highly desirable
- Work experience in developing countries is highly desirable
Functional knowledge:
- Demonstrated knowledge of pharmaceutical policy, health technology pipelines and intellectual property rights, as evidenced in writing samples
- Proven track record on research on issues related to health technology pipelines, pharmaceutical patents and public health, as evidenced by a publication record on the issue
- Excellent writing, research, analysis and presentation skills
Language Requirement:
- Excellent written and spoken English is essential
Payment terms for the contract.
Price Proposal and Schedule of Payment :
Consultant must send a financial proposal based on Daily Fee.
Consultant shall quote an all-inclusive Daily Fee for the contract period. The term “all-inclusive” implies that all costs (professional fees, communications, consumables, etc.) that could be incurred by the IC in completing the assignment are already factored into the daily fee submitted in the proposal. Payments shall be done on submitted timesheet basis based on actual days worked, upon verification of completion of deliverables and approval by the IC’s supervisor of a Time Sheet indicating the days worked in the period.
In the event of unforeseeable travel not anticipated in this TOR, payment of travel costs including tickets, lodging and terminal expenses should be agreed upon, between the respective business unit and the Individual Consultant, prior to travel and will be reimbursed.
In general, UNDP shall not accept travel costs exceeding those of an economy class ticket. Should the IC wish to travel on a higher class he/she should do so using their own resources
Travel costs shall be reimbursed at actual but not exceeding the quotation from UNDP approved travel agent. The provided living allowance will not be exceeding UNDP DSA rates
Criteria for Selection of the Best Offer
Individual consultants will be evaluated based on the following methodology:
Cumulative analysis:
The award of the contract shall be made to the individual consultant whose offer has been evaluated and determined as a) responsive/compliant/acceptable; and b) having received the highest score out of set of weighted technical criteria (70%). and financial criteria (30%). Financial score shall be computed as a ratio of the proposal being evaluated and the lowest priced proposal received by UNDP for the assignment
Technical Evaluation Criteria (maximum 70 points):
- Relevance of Education in Pharmaceutical sciences, medicine or public health (15 points)
- Relevance of work experience in the areas of pharmaceutical policy, procurement or regulation, intellectual property rights, and/or public health and treatment access or a related field (20 points)
- Demonstrated experience working with the UN or other multilateral organizations in the areas of pharmaceutical policy, procurement or regulation, and/or public health and treatment access is highly desirable (20 points)
- A publication record, specifically related to health technology pipelines, pharmaceutical patents and public health (15 points)
Only candidates obtaining a minimum of 70% of the total technical points would be considered for the Financial Evaluation.
Shortlisted candidates might be called for an interview, if required, which might be used to confirm and/or adjust the technical scores awarded based on documentation submitted.
Documents to be Included When Submitting the Proposals:
Candidates wishing to be considered for this assignment are required to submit the following documents to demonstrate their qualifications. Please group them into one (1) single PDF document/ or one ZIP File as the application only allows to upload maximum one document:
- Letter of Confirmation of Interest and Availability using the template provided in Annex III.
- Personal CV or P11, indicating all past experience from similar projects, as well as the contact details (email and telephone number) of the Candidate and at least three (3) professional references.
- Financial proposal, as per template provided in Annex III. Note: National consultants must quote prices in Thai Baht.
Incomplete proposals may not be considered.
Annexes:
Annex I - TOR_ Consultant for Pipeline and Patent Mapping
Annex II- General Condition of Contract
Annex III - Financial proposal and Offeror's Letter To UNDP Confirming Interest and Avail for IC
All documents can be downloaded at : http://procurement-notices.undp.org/view_notice.cfm?notice_id=39359