Bucking the System With a Conscience

Slender, 5-foot-7 with honey-brown ringlets framing her face, Victoria Hale hardly looks like a champion fighter. But the hard-headed scientist and one-time Food and Drug Administration regulator knows how to pack a punch. Four years ago she triggered an industry wake-up call when she created OneWorld Health, the first nonprofit drug company in the U.S.

What sounded like an oxymoron has become a catalyst for change. OneWorld Health is developing affordable treatments for diseases that affect millions in countries like India and Bangladesh — places that don’t typically attract the coffers of Big Pharma. This fall, the San Francisco-based team will move closer to its goal of bringing a new drug to market as it completes clinical trials on a treatment for leishmaniasis, an often fatal parasitic illness affecting 500,000 people a year.

By JENNIFER SOONG
From Worthwhile Magazine

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