UP Manila also provides technical support and research on health legislation. UP Manila research experts have worked towards the passage of the Newborn Screening Act in 2004, Universal Newborn Hearing Screening and Intervention Act of 2009, and the Rare Diseases Act of the Philippines of 2016 among others. UP Manila has also strongly opposed the conduct of local scientific studies and the legalization of medical marijuana. Researches which exerted the biggest national impact on Philippine health care include several research-based program recommendations generated through the national surveys on blindness and the studies on Hepatitis B, diarrhea, and common parasitic infections, which were adopted by the Department of Health; commercialization of five herbal medicinal formulations (lagundi, yerba buena, tsaang gubat, sambong and akapulko); textbooks and instructional manuals which are also used by other academic institutions; and the performance evaluation of PhilHealth, the country's national health insurance program. Since the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the National Institutes Health has produced various research on COVID-19 testing, healthcare, and vaccination. NIH also locally produced coronavirus test kits and ventilators to address the lack of health supplies and equipment. UP Manila Research Ethics Board The University of the Philippines Manila Research Ethics Board (UPMREB) was created on September 27, 2010, to integrate all existing ethics committees in UP Manila under a single research ethics board with component review panels, and guided by a unified set of standard operating procedures (SOPs). This initiative was intended to streamline and harmonize the process of ethics review, maximize the utilization of human and institutional resources, and provide a supportive and enabling environment for research in the university. Its oversight applies to faculty, personnel, and students doing research in UP Manila; non-UP Manila researchers doing research in UP Manila; and non-UP Manila researchers doing research in non-UP Manila sites with no local ethics review committee (as mandated by the Philippine Health Research Ethics Board). Prior to the establishment of the UPMREB, the different component panels already had existing standard operating procedures (SOPs), now superseded, which were used as the basis for the content of this current integrated manual. One important contribution of this integration is the opportunity to closely review the old SOPs towards a more practicable set of procedures guiding UPMREB work. Rankings and reputation UP Manila is recognized as one of the top higher education institutions in the country and the region. The Center for World University Ranking