GSK puts potential malaria cures into public domain

[Eejit]

It's about time the pharma multinationals learned the meaning of the word "ethics".

GSK will publish details of 13,500 chemical compounds from its own library that have potential to act against the parasite that causes malaria in sub-Saharan Africa, killing at least one million children every year.

It took a team of five investigators a year to screen the two million compounds in GSK's library – its entire collection of potential drugs and possibly the biggest such library in the world.

Witty's speech takes forward the agenda he set out nearly a year ago at Harvard University, when he pledged to put all the potential drugs for neglected diseases GSK holds in a "patent pool", waiving the company's intellectual property rights so that any scientists could investigate them. He also promised to cut the price of all GSK drugs in the world's poorest countries and to reinvest 20% of all profits it made there in projects to help local people.

But it's not all good,

[Witty] admitted he was disappointed other drug companies had not taken up the invitation he had held out to put their patents into the neglected diseases pool as well.

Tido von Schoen-Angerer, director of Médecins sans Frontières' campaign for essential medicines, said: "The fact that they are opening up their compounds for malaria is a good step. It is something like we have been calling for for some years. It would be good if other companies would do the same thing, and for other diseases." But Oxfam, Médecins sans Frontières and other NGOs are still very critical of GSK's reluctance to wholeheartedly embrace a patent pool for HIV drugs that is being set up by Unitaid.

We need moar!

 

[jverne]

I'm not surprised one bit.

 

[Eejit]

Yeah it's such normal behaviour for a multinational pharmaceutical giant.

 

[jverne]

Well actually you're right. My mistake, when i read "investigators" i thought the company was prosecuted for hiding them and now they wanted to open up as an apology.

 

[99.vikram]

No, you're thinking of Mosanto. They're the ones made of pure evil and fail.

 

[Eejit]

Monsanto are no worse than the rest of them tbh, except maybe GSK now.

 

[Emporius]

One problem with this is that research and development teams lose funding.

If I understand the situation correctly.

 

[Eejit]

I don't see how.

 

[Krynn72]

Seems like more people would be willing to invest in R&D now that they could have a major head start.

 

[Emporius]

I don't see how.

It will also be a problem when drug patents end. Individual companies make less money, and can't spend as much on R&D.

 

[Eejit]

It will also be a problem when drug patents end. Individual companies make less money, and can't spend as much on R&D.

Er, the big drugs companies don't spend much on malaria (affects poor people in poor countries) they'd rather research treatments for diabetes (fat rich people get this).
GSK lose very little giving away this data, they were just sitting on patents not developing them, but it could potentially save millions of lives down the line.

 

[No Limit]

Although it is true that private companies will probably no longer invest but government funded universities and research labs will. I think this type of research should be done by the government anyway, eliminate the profit motive from finding potential cures.

 

[Eejit]

The companies prefer to research treatments rather than cures anyhow, more money that way.