E-DRUG: MSF on governments role in global health R&D
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Governments Must Move Forward with Global R&D Framework at World Health Assembly
Geneva, 19 May 2006 - As health ministers meet in Geneva at the World
Health Assembly (WHA) next week, the medical humanitarian organisation
Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) is calling on governments to overhaul the
way medical research and development (R&D) is prioritised and financed, and
support a resolution proposed by Kenya and Brazil for a "global framework
on essential health R&D." Despite gathering increasing support from many
governments, this resolution has faced consistent obstruction on the part
of the WHO Secretariat.
The proposed resolution is boosted by the analysis and recommendations
reached by the report of the independent Commission on Intellectual
Property, Innovation and Public Health (CIPIH), which was set up by the WHA
in 2003. The report confirms that the current system, which relies on
patents to stimulate innovation, does not foster the necessary research to
address the needs of billions of people in developing countries.
Tuberculosis is a perfect example of how the system is broken. "Despite
massive needs and close to two million deaths a year, we are still forced
to use a test that only detects half of all cases, and use long, cumbersome
and increasingly inefficient treatment," said Dr. Tido von Schoen-Angerer,
Director for R&D at MSF's Campaign for Access to Essential Medicines.
This is because the R&D system provides greater rewards for developing
drugs that sell well, rather than drugs that meet unaddressed health needs.
Pharmaceutical companies therefore largely ignore the needs of patients in
developing countries, while gearing their research towards wealthy markets.
A new analysis by MSF shows that only 1% of the drugs reaching the market
in the three decades between 1974 and 2004 address neglected diseases such
as kala azar, sleeping sickness, or tuberculosis.
"The CIPIH report is a strong call for action by governments and WHO," said
Ellen 't Hoen, Director for Policy and Advocacy at MSF's Access Campaign.
"It's been a long uphill struggle to get WHO interested in this question,
and if you look at the enormous health needs out there, you think, how on
earth is this the case?" she added.
"Governments need to commit to changing the rules of the game, or people
will continue to die because the diseases they suffer from don't provide
profits," said Dr. Rowan Gillies, International President of MSF, speaking
at a press conference in Geneva. "If this WHA doesn't come out with a
strong initiative, paving the way for a new needs-driven R&D framework and
securing its public financing, WHO and governments will have again missed a
vital opportunity to tackle urgent health needs," he added.
Although product development is not a traditional activity for a medical
humanitarian organisation, MSF increasingly has no choice but to act in
this field. After having been a co-founder of the Drugs for Neglected
Diseases Initiative (DNDi) three years ago, the organisation is now
collaborating with the Diagnostics Development Unit at Cambridge
University, which is developing a much-needed simple, cheap and rapid HIV
viral load test for use in resource-poor settings, called SAMBA (Simple AM
plification BAsed nucleic acid test).
Right now, the difficulty of diagnosing HIV in small children in
resource-poor settings is an obstacle to putting them on life-prolonging
treatment, so a simple and affordable test is an urgent priority. If
successfully developed, the SAMBA test will help diagnose HIV in infants
and improve treatment monitoring in adults.
"We are aiming to simplify current technologies so that children with
HIV/AIDS can be diagnosed and virological failure can be detected on the
spot, without the need for specialised facilities, highly trained personnel
and expensive equipment," said Dr. Helen Lee, the researcher leading the
project at Cambridge University.
"We feel compelled to support the development of vital health tools,
because industry is failing to address the needs of the most vulnerable,
and governments and the WHO are not taking responsibility either," said Dr.
von Schoen-Angerer. "What we are doing is just a stopgap measure. Precisely
this kind of R&D is what needs to happen on a much wider scale, and needs
to be supported through a global framework," he added.
Contact: Sheila Shettle + 41 (0)79.293.0270 or + 41 (0)22.849.8403
James Arkinstall +33. 6.14.92.69.67