Financial Times
Published: June 17 2005
DRUG COMPANIES APPEAL FOR G8 BACKING TO FIGHT DISEASES
Some of the world's leading pharmaceutical companies and drug development charities appealed yesterday to the leaders of the G8 nations for more support in developing treatments for diseases such as malaria, Aids and tuberculosis in the world's poorest nations, writes Andrew Jack.
AstraZeneca, GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis, Bayer and Sanofi Aventis co-signed a letter with several "public-private partnerships" working on medicines, vaccines and diagnostics, warning that governments needed to play a larger part if their efforts were to succeed. Organisations such as the Global Alliance for Tuberculosis Drug Development and the Medicines for Malaria Venture are making substantial progress in research discoveries that could lead to important breakthroughs for the first time in many years.
But they face a sharp increase in funding requirements for clinical trials on humans that are necessary to show the drugs work and win approval by regulators. "For every $1 spent on research you need $10 for development," said Jon Pender from GlaxoSmithKline. The bulk of support for the public-private partnerships has come from a handful of philanthropists, notably the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, matched by funding and research assistance from pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies that have the skills and compounds needed. "This is a model that works, but if we don't get more support most of these new drugs will remain in the pipeline," said Anna Wang from the Medicines for Malaria Venture, which helped to co-ordinate yesterday's letter.