New medicine for neglected diseases
Every year millions of people in developing countries die from infectious tropical diseases such as the sleeping sickness, lepra or malaria. They die because there are no affordable and effective drugs to tackle them. Safe, affordable, effective and field-adapted vaccines and drugs are unfortunately not available due to the lack of research and development in the field of tropical diseases: of all new medicines developed between 1975 and 1999, only 1 % was developed for tropical neglected diseases and tuberculosis! Most of the drugs still used were developed in colonial times. They are often expensive, difficult to administer and hard to tolerate. Several of them, like the drugs against tuberculosis, are becoming ineffective because of increasing parasite resistance.
Also the comprehensive report of the WHO Commission on Intellectual Property, Innovation and Public Health (CIPIH) points out the challenge of boosting essential health innovation: the system of drug development, based on market incentives, leaves huge health needs unmet and is not adapted to the needs of patients in low-income countries. The current profit-driven system is oriented to the needs of patients in rich countries. Pharmaceutical industries have no incentives to develop drugs against diseases like leishmaniasis which mostly concern people who cannot afford medication. New tools are urgently needed to overcome this gap.
In the wake of the CIPIH report, WHO created an Intergovernmental Working Group (IGWG) in order to address the issues addressed in the report and develop an action plan to improve the access to medicine. The Working Group plans to present its plan during the next World Health Assembly to take place in Geneva from 19th to 24th May.
A recent parliamentarian initiative that I launched together with my colleagues aims at raising political leadership in order to set research and development priorities according to the needs of patients in poor countries. Capturing the growing momentum for action, my colleagues and I request the german government to advocate for an increased public-private scientific cooperation, to better finance public research and development and foster transfer of know-how and technology to developing countries. An increased support to non-profit product development partnerships like DNDi (Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative) is essential to set up new research priorities.
