E-DRUG: TB drug pipeline to generate new drugs
----------------------------------------------
dear E-druggers,
After decades of standstill in product research & development for
neglected diseases, the work of product development partnerships and some
companies have brought promising new compounds to the long empty pipeline.
The big question is if the current activities and investments already
constitute an adequate response to the magnitude of the R&D crisis and
whether they can bring about the necessary breakthroughs.
A recent paper by Seth W. Glickman et al in Science ("A Portfolio Model of
Drug Development for Tuberculosis, 3 March 2006 VOL 311 SCIENCE) looked at
the pipeline of the TB Alliance and paints a very worrying picture. The
paper prompted an in-depth response by Andrew Farlow, from Oxford
University, that brings further qualification to the degree of
shortcomings and looks at methodological issues.
While Ministries of Health are considering the findings by the WHO
Commission on Intellectual Property, Innovation and Public Health and a
proposal by Kenya and Brazil for a global framework for R&D at this week's
World Health Assembly, this is an example of the kind of the academic
debate that needs to take place on wider scale, in order to generate
further evidence on this issue.
Andrew Farlow's paper is available at:
www.economics.ox.ac.uk/members/andrew.farlow/FarlowTBPortfolio.pdf
As Science Magazine has no open access policy, interested readers should
contact me directly to obtain a copy of the original Science paper. We are
trying to purchase a link so that readers can access the paper through our
www. accessmed-msf.org site in the coming weeks and will keep you updated.
regards
Tido von Schoen-Angerer, MD
Campaign for Access to Essential Medicines
Medecins Sans Frontieres
tido.von.schoenangerer@berlin.msf.org