 Richard
Mahoney has a B.S. in Chemistry from Purdue University
(1965) and a Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of
California, San Diego (1970). His Ph.D. studies were in
relativistic quantum mechanics. After working in the Robert
Kennedy presidential campaign toward the end of his Ph.D.
studies, he decided to reorient his career in a more social
direction, and he was fortunate to secure a position at
the Ford Foundation in the Population Office where he
eventually became head of the program in support of reproductive
biology and contraceptive development. At the time he
was promoted to Program Officer, he was the youngest person
in the Foundation to hold this position.
With Gordon Perkin he helped to found PIACT, which
eventually became PATH. He served for two years each
in the Philippines and Indonesia for PATH helping to
launch programs and set up field offices. He moved to
Seattle in 1983 where he assumed a senior management
role with PATH. His main areas of activity while with
PATH were to manage the field offices, to oversee a
loan program, to develop new programs, to raise new
funds, and to manage the business development activities.
From its founding to end of 1994, when he left PATH,
PATH grew to about 160 people with an annual budget
of $16 million.
In the late 1980s, he co-founded the International
Task Force on Hepatitis B Immunization with Fred Prince
and James Maynard. The Task Force undertook a series
of initiatives and programs that reduced the international
price of hepatitis B vaccine to less than $1 per dose
and introduced the vaccine into nationwide use in several
developing countries.
In 1995, he joined the UNDP start-up team for the IVI
in Seoul, Korea. He helped to launch the IVI by setting
up all the administrative systems including finance,
personnel, Board matters, and intellectual property
(IP). He also conducted independent research on vaccine
health policy.
Dr. Mahoney has been involved with the founding and
development of several organizations in addition to
PATH and IVI. These include Kabalikat ng Pamilyang Pilipino
in Manila, Yayasan Kusuma Buana in Jakarta, PIACT/Bangladesh
in Dhaka, and The Concept Foundation in Bangkok. All
these organizations are in operation today and are making
important contributions to public health.
Dr. Mahoney’s involvement in IP management has
been continuous since his work at the Ford Foundation.
He helped create the Foundation’s first IP management
policy. He also developed IP programs at PATH and the
IVI. While at PATH he oversaw the negotiation of more
than 150 IP agreements with public and private sector
counterparts.
Since early 2001, Dr. Mahoney has worked with the Rockefeller
Foundation to address the issue of how the public sector
can better manage IP in health R&D. This work has
led to the founding of a new international organization
based in London. The Centre for Management of IP in
Health R&D (MIHR) is attracting international attention
for its innovative strategies and plans.
Dr. Mahoney has published several papers on vaccine
policy including one with James Maynard that became
the intellectual basis on which the Bill and Melinda
Gates Foundation launched its funding for vaccine research
and development. Most recently he published a paper
on global vaccine financing. The proposals in the paper
have been influential in formulating the policies adopted
by the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunizations,
Dr. Mahoney is married and has two daughters and two
grand children. He has been living and working in the
United States since March 2001.
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