[Ip-health] Prize money could stimulate medical research

[Judit Rius Sanjuan]

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http://mediaglobal.org/index.php/2008/03/26/prize-money-could-stimulate-med=
ical-research/

Prize money could stimulate medical research
By Adelia Saunders

26 March 2008 [MEDIAGLOBAL]: Awarding prizes for the development of
new drugs to treat the world=92s most devastating illnesses could
fundamentally change the pharmaceutical industry and save countless
lives, according to a panel of public health officials, advocates and
experts who gathered at UN Headquarters last week to discuss new ways
to motivate medical research.

Pharmaceutical companies currently have little financial incentive to
develop the drugs most urgently needed by the world=92s poor. Instead,
they maximize profits by altering already existing medicines=97and thus
extending the time they can collect royalties on their production=97or
by developing drugs that target the ailments of those who can most
afford them. Wealthy governments have been slow to fund research that
would benefit the poor of other nations, and diseases such
tuberculosis, malaria, sleeping sickness and a host of others have
gone largely ignored, while funds are poured into honing treatments
for diabetes, anxiety and sleeplessness=97ailments associated with the
rich.

=93The current system has failed quite dramatically in Africa,=94 said
Ahmed Ogwell, head of International Relations for Kenya=92s Ministry of
Health. =93That is why the disease burden is in fact probably increasing
in some areas.=94

Tuberculosis is among those diseases, largely eradicated from the
developed world, that remain startlingly prevalent in developing
countries. There were 9.2 million new cases in 2006, primarily in Asia
and Africa, and 400,000 of those infections have shown prolonged
resistance to common treatments. =93What we need is new drugs for a
quicker kind of response,=94 Jorge Sampaio, the UN Secretary-General=92s
Special Envoy to Stop Tuberculosis, told MediaGlobal during a visit to
the UN on Tuesday. =93The drugs are 40 years old, the vaccines are no
longer that efficient.=94

Prizes could reconfigure the pharmaceutical economy, paying
manufacturers based on the usefulness, rather than the profitability,
of their drugs, transforming the world=92s poorest and sickest into
valuable customers. =93The main idea is you de-couple the reward for
R[esearch] and D[evelopment] from the price of the product,=94 said
Jamie Love, Director of Knowledge Ecology International, a Washington,
D.C.-based think tank. =93You=92ve got some marginal population out there=
=97
that=92s actually a dream for a venture capitalist.=94

Not everyone is so optimistic. David Taylor, Professor of
Pharmaceutical and Public Health Policy at the University of London,
described the idea of using prizes to stimulate scientific discovery
as =93half-baked but probably well-intended.=94

=93The definition of a prize is you don=92t get the money unless you
produce the goods,=94 said Taylor, who was not a member of the UN panel,
in an interview MediaGlobal. He questioned whether =93very large
institutions are really prepared to risk very large investments for
the possibility of no prize.=94

Dilip Shah, Secretary General of the Indian Pharmaceutical Alliance,
advocates grants rather than prizes. Grants would =93encourage more and
more companies and individuals to participate,=94 he told MediaGlobal,
adding that funding is needed most during the development process, and
well-placed grants could promote an =93innovation culture.=94

The developing world has a critical role to play in drug development,
Shah said. Medical advancement is cheaper there. =93Incentives could be
used as a tool for enlarging the pool of innovators, for tapping
R[esearch] and D[evelopment] potential in the developing regions and
reducing the cost of innovation,=94 he said.

Ogwell agrees that bringing drug research and manufacturing to the
global South makes economic sense=97and bringing the pharmaceutical
industry to Africa could speed the formation of knowledge-based
economies in some of the world=92s least developed countries. =93We think
it=92s not impossible to be able to transfer a lot of the production
into Africa and make the prizes a fraction=94 of the monetary amount
they would need to be elsewhere, Ogwell told MediaGlobal.

Yet developing medicines for neglected diseases is not enough. The
treatments must be made available, and a tangle of patent laws and
international treaties often stand between crucial new medicines and
those who need them.

=93The prize discussion is about the pipeline for new drugs, and that=92s
a longer-term proposition. For existing drugs it=92s an issue of
compulsory license on the patent,=94 Love told MediaGlobal, citing
Thailand=92s decision last year to override patents prohibiting generic
production of several critical medicines.

=93For example, Plavix, a heart disease drug, was two dollars a day in
Thailand before the compulsory license, and that=92s about 40 percent of
the income of the bottom 80 percent of the population,=94 Love said.
=93Countries, the ones that are taking action, are issuing compulsory
licenses on the patents so they can get generic drugs=97that=92s the most
important access battle that=92s going on.=94

Some critics of the pharmaceutical industry advocate doing away with
drug patents altogether. But drug producers say they have a right to
profit from their discoveries and recover the cost of their research.
Taylor warns that limiting intellectual property rights will smother
innovation. =93If we undermine the main financial basis with which
private research is funded=97and the evidence is that public money has
often tended to follow private money=97then you will wholesale undermine
pharmaceutical and biomedical research. It=92s fine if people want to
introduce prizes or alternative funding systems=97they should be
regarded as an add-on.=94

For their part, tuberculosis activists would welcome an opportunity to
buoy research into diagnosing, treating and preventing the disease,
Sampaio said, but added that government support is also essential to
the development of new drugs. As to prize money, =93so much the better,=94
he said, stressing that the relative unpopularity of tuberculosis
among researchers hasn=92t stopped the disease from killing 4,500 people
a day. =93We have to have those who are keen on developing new research
tools have the appropriate compensation,=94 he said.

Judit Rius Sanjuan
Attorney at Knowledge Ecology International
www.keionline.org / www.cptech.org
Phone: +1.202.332.2670, x18
Email: judit.rius@keionline.org