SPARK NTD will be launched during the 12th annual SPARK GLOBAL Meeting, scheduled to be held from June 15-17, 2026 in Helsinki, Finland. In addition to the meeting, we will also be celebrating SPARK Finland’s 10th Anniversary and SPARK at Stanford 20th Anniversary.
Building on existing foundations and partnership for launch in 2026
SPARK NTD will be built in a first step leveraging learnings from the SPARK and INCATE models at University of Basel and SPARK Stanford and from the Centre for Epidemic Response and Innovation (CERI) at Stellenbosch University along with the already engaged academic groups within Swiss TPH, IS Global and SPARK Africa and further potential partners such as H3D, Fiocruz and Dundee.
Currently there is commitment from University of Basel and Stellenbosch University to co-ordinate the launch as well as interest from Swiss TPH, IS Global and SPARK Africa to explore support. There is a growing pool of mentors with experience across therapeutic areas and modalities. The website, offering and support to initial projects is also being launched on the SPARK Global meeting at Helsinki, June 15-17 2026 with formal launch and start of the activities in the second half of 2026.
Each of the partners would provide access to their network resources to deliver training and support and where relevant access to discovery and development platforms. In return they receive access to a community of drug developers, support for their own projects and opportunity for collaborations.
Experience from INCATE has shown a mix of both improved support for internal projects and research collaborations has helped to more than match the effort of resources put into the shared platform by academic partners.
In addition to partners, independent experts would provide expert feedback and support curation. This is a model from SPARK, GARDP and INCATE that has proven successful.