E-DRUG: Drug discovery and development in developing countries
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Dear E-druggers,
I am a Brazilian science writer currently at University of Oxford, UK, as
Reuters Institute Fellow. Here I am studying the drug discovery and
development of medicines in developing countries such as Brazil. My case study
is a state-of-the-art immunomodulator called, in short, P-MAPA. It is the
first compound of pharmacological interest to accomplish all phases of
development of a medicine, from screening to phase-I clinical trials, in a
country without any tradition in researching and producing original
pharmaceuticals.
More importantly, it seems to be a powerful drug candidate against cancer,
AIDS and infectious diseases such as tuberculosis -- due to its ability of
rebuilding the immune system, as demonstrated in many studies in animal models
and humans. It is not a panacea, obviously. (If you are interested in a
detailed description of such medicine, please look at
www.farmabrasilis.org.br/english.)
The small group of scientists who work on this medicine had to overcome the
lack of expertise, creating and training its own teamwork, since there wasn�t
nobody to do such kind of studies in Brazil; they also had to forge a
structure of research, as if they were a pharmaceutical industry, establishing
alliances and research networks.
My hypothesis is that this course exposes frailties, virtues and
potentialities of science production in developing countries, showing how it
works or could work. It can also reveal how the scientific submission of
developing countries on more advanced ones is intense and profound.
How does this rational sound to you?
What kind of barriers against developing of medicines do you have already
acknowledged in developing countries?
Comments are very welcome.
Thank you very much.
Best regards,
Carlos
--
Carlos Fioravanti, Reuters Institute Fellow
Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, University of Oxford
13 Norham Gardens, Oxford OX2 6PS
website: http://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk
Carlos Fioravanti <carlos.fioravanti@green.ox.ac.uk>