Pharmaceutical Giant Goes Public with Malaria Patents

Multinational Pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline (makers of Beano and Flonase) is releasing over 13,500 malaria-related patents and data-sets into the public domain. This will hopefully accelerate progress on malaria vaccines and treatments; Way to go GSK! Some argue, however, that Big Pharma is not quite as generous as they claim to be.

Malaria, a mosquito-transmitted disease, plagues 350 – 500 million people every year, and kills 1-3 million people a year, mostly children. While basically eradicated in the developed world, Malaria is endemic in the developing world, especially sub-Saharan Africa. Malaria is both a cause and effect of poverty — widespread sickness and the subsequent need for time and resources needed to treat the disease is especially taxing on poor populations that have no disposable income and make less than $2 per day. Billions of dollars are donated each year to programs that fight the endemic, including mosquito net distribution, vaccination, and health care.

Industry analysts have called this the first large-scale release of patented compounds in recent history, opening up opportunities for research not only between GSK and its partners, but to scientists at universities and other private and non-profit firms. With findings now in publicly-accessible databases, scientists from smaller groups can stop re-discovering the wheel: “”We often have academics coming to us and saying we have found a new structure, and we tell them that we already have ten of those,” said Timothy Wells, chief scientific officer of Medicines for Malaria Venture.

Skeptics point out that GSK’s motivation for this is the self-promotion of a positive public image. Because the disease largely affects poor people, there is not much profit to be made in developing vaccines. Nonetheless, it is hard to argue against the fact that this is a positive step in the treatment and eradication of a diseases that directly and indirectly affects billions of people around the world. Hopefully, this will encourage other major pharmaceutical companies such as Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson to do the same with their research on compounds related to Malaria, AIDS and HIV, Tuberculosis, and other diseases that greatly contribute to global poverty.

[GlaxoSmithKline] via [DNAindia]

What Do You Think?

Do pharmaceutical companies have a moral obligation to share their research and development with the world, regardless of the economic implications?