[Ip-health] Glaxo offers free access to potential malaria cures

[Ira Glazer]

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main

The chief executive of the world's second biggest pharmaceutical company
will today announce that he is putting into the public domain thousands of
potential drugs <http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/drugs> that might cure
malaria <http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/malaria-prevention>.

Andrew Witty, the British boss of Glaxo-SmithKline, will say in a major
speech that multinational drug companies have to balance social
responsibility alongside the need to make profits for their shareholders.
There is, he will say, an "imperative to earn the trust of society, not jus=
t
by meeting expectations but by exceeding them".

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 =96 its entire collection of potential drugs and
possibly the biggest such library in the world.

The move was given a cautious welcome by charities such as M=E9decins Sans
Fronti=E8res, although Oxfam questioned whether other big drug companies wo=
uld
want to develop treatments from GSK patents.

Witty, though, believes scientists would and should seize the opportunity.

Speaking to the Guardian in advance of the announcement in New York, he
said: "To my knowledge nobody's ever put confirmed-hit structures into the
public domain. Universities have done stuff like this but on a much smaller
scale.

"I think it's a significant contribution to give scientists around the worl=
d
13,500 new opportunities to start research."

Witty will also announce an $8m fund to pay for scientists to explore these
chemicals or others in an "open lab" within its research centre at Tres
Cantos, Spain, which is dedicated to work on malaria and other diseases of
the developing world.

"It's trying to create a permissiveness around scientific research in an
area where we know the marketplace isn't going to stimulate massive
research," he said.

"Given that there is only a handful of big companies who focus on malaria,
this is a chance to get thousands of researchers involved =96 just like
software companies encourage thousands of people to contribute their new
ideas for software =96 and we'll see what comes of it."

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.

He 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.

"I think they're just nervous. I don't think they have crossed =85 I crosse=
d
the bridge a year ago ... that you can have a [different] approach to the
way you think about intellectual property and openness in an area like
neglected tropical diseases. There is no financial market stimulating
discovery so we need to find ways to stimulate discovery. This is a way to
do it."

While it was pleased at GSK's new initiatives and praised the leadership th=
e
company had shown, Oxfam in effect accused Witty of naivety in thinking tha=
t
other drug giants would come on board.

"Last year he announced some new, interesting ideas. But they stayed for a
whole year as ideas. GSK should know how the industry works. As long as thi=
s
is run by one company, others are not going to join in," said the charity's
senior health adviser, Dr Mohga Kamal-Yanni. "I'm glad they realise now the=
y
need to do more than just put ideas on the table.

"It is quite exciting what they have decided to do, but we have to watch
whether it becomes something interesting at the end of the day."

Tido von Schoen-Angerer, director of M=E9decins sans Fronti=E8res' 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 th=
e
same thing, and for other diseases." But Oxfam, M=E9decins sans Fronti=E8re=
s 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.

Witty's view is that Aids is not a neglected disease. There is a lot of
research and development going on because of a lucrative market for HIV
drugs in Europe and the USA. But he told the Guardian that he might join in
if he believed the pool would succeed in improving access for the poorest t=
o
HIV drugs.

"I'm not saying no but I need to see the detail," he said. GSK was now
meeting and working with Unitaid. "We'd really like to be in the position o=
f
helping them work out detail that works."

His company has licensed its HIV drugs to generic companies to make cheap
copies and allowed them to combine the drugs with those of other companies,
which is what the Unitaid pool aims to do. But he said: "If Unitaid has a
better mousetrap, we're happy to be part of a better mousetrap."