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P.T. Jyothi Datta

NEW DELHI, June 28

DESPITE all the screaming from the roof-tops on `corporate social responsibility' by pharmaceutical companies — their efforts to develop drugs for diseases that affect the population of poorer nations do not seem to have cut much ice with the Noble Prize winning organisation Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF).

"We tried to push for a statement at the G-8 Summit to consolidate the Doha Declaration and support the commitment towards public health, but nothing happened. I am extremely pessimistic about the developed countries on the issue of making drugs accessible to the masses. Countries like India with its vibrant scientific community and Brazil, who have done tremendous work in making medicines affordable, should fight to make drugs available to their population and we will support them," Dr Bernard Pecoul, Director of MSF's Campaign for Access to Essential Medicines, told Business Line.

Commenting on the recent efforts by companies such as Novartis, AstraZeneca, Eli Lilly and GlaxoSmithKline in segments such as leprosy, tuberculosis (TB) and other infectious diseases, he said: "In my conversations with some of these companies, I have found that while they have been investing in these initiatives, they are not looking to go the whole hog in terms of developing the drug and commercialising it. Pharmaceutical companies do not want to invest money in segments that are not commercially viable and the market driven strategy will not work in making drugs accessible to people afflicted with neglected diseases," he points out.

"A mere 10 per cent of global health research is devoted to diseases that account for 90 per cent of the global disease burden. And while malaria, TB and leprosy are getting some attention, leishmaniasis (kala azar) and human African trypanosomiasis (sleeping sickness) are not. I do agree it is not the responsibility of private companies to develop new drugs for neglected diseases, but through advocacy we will try to motivate them to partner with public institutions and focus on neglected illnesses," he said.

Only one per cent of the 1,393 new drugs registered during 1975 to 1999 were for tropical diseases and "we cannot rely on pharma companies or the market to develop new drugs in this segment," he said.

Dr Robert Ridley, with the World Health Organisation's Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases (TDR), pointed out that they had been focussing on neglected diseases for 25 years. However, the last five years has seen more governments enter the arena with new research initiatives.

But with pharma companies largely focussing on illnesses such as diabetes, hypertension, memory-loss etc, research into neglected diseases continues to take a backseat, he pointed out.

ICMR to partner global drugs initiative

THE Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) will partner with other global institutions to launch the Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative (DNDi), a brain-child of the MSF.

The organisation will get formalised in Geneva on July 3. Other partnering organisations include the Pasteur Institute, the Kenya Medical Research Institute, Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, and the Malaysian Ministry for Health. MSF's Dr Pecoul said that DNDi will have a corpus of $250 million over 10 years.

"Six to eight drugs are already in the pipeline," he said, adding that a portfolio would be developed in the segment. Dr N.K. Ganguly, Director General, ICMR pointed out that the collaborative research would give drugs that are developed, a global market and at an affordable cost.

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