About Ramanan

Dr. Ramanan Laxminarayan is a globally recognized economist and public health expert focused on solving the crisis of drug resistance, particularly to antibiotics. He has worked since 1995 to frame antibiotic resistance as an economic challenge—a problem of managing a shared global resource that all countries must work together to protect. He is the Founder and President of the One Health Trust (formerly known as the Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics & Policy), a nonprofit research group with offices in the U.S. and India. He is also a Senior Research Scholar at Princeton University and holds affiliate positions at the University of Washington and Johns Hopkins. Ramanan is a key advisor to global leaders and policymakers, having served on the U.S. Presidential Advisory Council on Combating Antimicrobial Resistance and advising organizations like the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Bank. His work is known for being innovative and practical: He helped create the Affordable Medicines Facility for malaria, a financial plan that lowered the cost of antimalarial drugs worldwide to improve access and delay drug resistance. He founded the Immunization Technical Support Unit in India, which has been credited with dramatically improving the country’s vaccination program. He currently chairs the board of GARDP, a WHO-established partnership aimed at developing and delivering new treatments for bacterial infections. His extensive research and highly-viewed TED Talk have been essential in bringing the issue of drug resistance to the attention of the United Nations General Assembly.