Maternal and perinatal disease accounts for nearly 10% of the global burden of disease, with only modest progress towards achievement of the Millennium Development Goals. Despite a favourable new global health landscape in research and development (R&D) to produce new drugs for neglected diseases, R&D investment in maternal/perinatal health remains small and non-strategic. Investment in obstetric R&D by industry or the not-for-profit sector has lagged behind other specialties, with the number of registered pipeline drugs only 1-5% that for other major disease areas. Using a Delphi exercise with maternal/perinatal experts in global and translational research, we estimate that equitable pharmaceutical R&D and public sector research funding over the next 10-20 years could avert 1.1% and 1.9% of the global disease burden, respectively. In contrast, optimal uptake of existing research would prevent 3.0%, justifying the current focus on health service provision. Although R&D predominantly occurs in high-income countries, more than 98% of the estimated reduction in disease burden in this field would be in developing countries. We conclude that better pharmaceutical and public sector R&D would prevent around 1/3 and 2/3, respectively, of the disease burden addressable by optimal uptake of existing research. Strengthening R&D may be an important complementary strategy to health service provision to address global maternal and perinatal disease burden.

The US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) has supported the extension of HIV care and treatment to 2.4 million individuals as of September 2009. With increasing resources targeted toward rapid scale-up, it is important to understand the characteristics of current PEPFAR-supported HIV care and treatment sites.