The ACT Consortium is addressing specific research questions on selected aspects related to effectiveness of ACTs; specifically accuracy of diagnosis, repeated treatment, pharmacovigilance in trial conditions, quality of ACTs, adherence and health impact for existing antimalarials and dose so by intervening in the health care delivery process. In contrast, the INDEPTH Phase IV platform seeks to generate effectiveness and additional safety information on new ACTs and current ACTs to examine the benefits of new treatments compared with old treatment without intervening in routine health delivery systems. The purpose of the Phase IV Platform also is to generate policy relevant information needed for uptake and up scaling of the new antimalarials from routine health systems while the ACT consortium seeks to generate information on best strategies to deliver ACTs.

The INDEPTH Phase IV Platform will also undertake stakeholder analysis and engage actively with policy makers which the ACT consortium will not directly do. The Phase IV Platform aims to help inform the development of a new framework for changing drug policy in the era of combination therapies at national, regional and international level based on evidence generated on determinants for changing policy. However, the generation of pharmacovigilance information on HIV-infected patients by the ACT consortium will provide additional information for the safety profile of the phase IV platform. The ACT consortium will also use a modeling approach to building scenarios for changing policy and the Phase IV Safety and Effectiveness Studies platform could also support this approach by providing the ACT Consortium with evidence generated from real life field studies to enhance policy decision making.