[Ip-health] Initiative for Open Source Drug Discovery in India

[amit sen]

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FYI: For those who missed taking note of this very important development.
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  Initiative for =93Open Source=94 Drug Discovery in India

  The work on =93open source=94 drug development has been initiated India b=
y the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR)-led =91Insilico=
 biology consortium=92, involving leading public institutes in the country,=
 such as Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (IGIB), Institute of=
 Microbial Technology (IMT), Central Drug Research Institute (CDRI), Nation=
al Institute of Immunology (NII), Vallabhbhai Patel Chest Institute (VPCI),=
 Delhi University. They will later be joined by institutes such as Indian I=
nstitutes of Technology (IIT), Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (C=
CMB), Indian Institute of Science and others. The Government of India has c=
ommitted a grant of $34 million to the CSIR to take this work forward. The =
initiative targets drugs for Tuberculosis, and it is proposed that the work=
 shall be extended to Malaria and other infectious diseases.

  The initial work has involved the development of a web based platform, wh=
ere researchers can search and annotate shared databases. The web platform =
would also host a database of requirements for developing drugs for infecti=
ous diseases. These =93requirements=94 are based on a =93breaking up=94 of =
the process of drug development into into smaller, individual problems. The=
se =93problems=94 would be uploaded on the web platform, and solutions to t=
hese would be invited from researchers/ groups of reserachers/ institutes. =
Solutions to individual problems would attract the grant of =93credits=94, =
and the same can be encashed. This process is premised on the understanding=
 that most challenges in drug development, at least till the testing stages=
, are chemical, and all chemical problems deal with mathematical algorithms=
 and formulae, which lend themselves to problem solving on a web-based plat=
form. Individual pages, on the platform, would host tasks such as searching=
 for new targets, finding
 chemicals to attack known targets, and posting data from related chemistry=
 and biology experiments.

  The project also involves the harnessing of the productivity of the vario=
us government and university laboratories to continue with the drug discove=
ry process, including the =93wet experimentations=94, till the final molecu=
le is identified after clinical trials. There are also plans to harness CRO=
s in the country to conduct clinical trials, and the Govt. is looking at pr=
oviding subsidy of about 50% on the costs of such trials, with the rest bei=
ng shared by those interested in commercialising the product.

  All discoveries would remain in the public domain, and final stages of dr=
ug development would be conducted by whatever company offered the lowest bi=
d. Since the key information related to the drug=92s action would not be pa=
tented, generic competitors could immediately enter the market, keeping the=
 drug prices low.

  The entire process shall be put under a =93click wrap agreement=94 [simil=
ar to the GNU GPL (General Public License)] =96 with appropriate modificati=
ons.

  The model, thus, incorporates a large number of alternate ideas to promot=
e innovation, viz. =93open source=94 and =93copyleft=94 models, prize fund =
mechanisms, and a new vision of decentralising research in a collaborative =
framework.

  Amit Sen Gupta
  National Working Group of Patent Laws, India


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