For five days in November 2009, over 900 people from 85 countries met in Havana, Cuba, to discuss and debate “innovation for health, with a special focus on health equity and an overall objective of identifying the policies and strategies necessary to improve the global and national environments for innovation.”[1] Forum 2009 was the 13th major international event organized by the Global Forum for Health Research, an independent, international nongovernmental organization, established in Geneva as a Swiss foundation in 1998.