Microbicides Research and Development Portfolio Management System (MRDPMS): A new approach of portfolio management for microbicides research & development

USAID, a major actor in microbicide R&D required a systematic and automated mechanism for managing, tracking, and reporting microbicides R&D activities of its implementing partners across product and development stages. Consistent with other portfolio management approaches, SSS developed a monitoring and evaluation framework and system that reflect the current research agenda and partner reporting capabilities, systematic data collection, and offer the flexibility to monitor increased and diverse sets of activities specific to the R&D arena. Unique to the R&D portfolio is the need to monitor interventions at each stage of the R&D cycle (preclinical, formulation/delivery and clinical trials) along with social science research which provides critical knowledge contributing to biomedical decisions and cross-cutting activities that support each stage. Identifying database development needs from two perspectives (USAID and its partners) was critical in defining user-requirements as was testing prototypes to ensure that all needs were being met. Systems development through a participatory process allowed for a web-based system with key features (tailored model built for flexibility, information flow based on R&D pipeline, and protection of proprietary data). This ensured ease of partner reporting and report generation for different parameters and combinations. The microbicide R&D database (MRDPMS) was deployed in 2006 along with user training for initial data entry. Each implementing partner complied with the new reporting format. The automated base-year data contributed to decreased managing time and improved decision-making process. MRDPMS can be rapidly adapted to R&D work such as HIV/AIDS vaccine development and be expanded to service delivery level.