By Peggy Corlin - 9th February 2006
MEPs have backed calls for more pharmaceutical funding to be diverted to research on tropical diseases.
During a public hearing on Wednesday in the European parliament, scientists and medical professionals told euro deputies that 35,000 people die every day from infectious diseases
And MEPs were informed that research and pharmaceutical production for diseases such as Leishmaniasis, sleeping sickness and chagas disease are largely being ignored.
Less than one per cent of the approximately 1400 new medicines developed over the last 25 years were created to combat tropical diseases.
The Drug development partnership, Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi) argues that too little public money is being invested in the production of new drugs to combat a number of neglected diseases, that primarily affect the most impoverished in the developing world.
Western-style lifestyle drugs produced to combat non-lethal medical problems such as hair loss or erectile dysfunction are the medicines that generate the most profits for pharmaceutical companies.
Almost half of worldwide funding on drug development is financed by public funds, MEPs were told, yet around 90 per cent of pharmaceutical research funding is spent on diseases which account for only ten per cent of the lost health years of life worldwide.
“Basic science about infectious diseases exists and biomedicine is developing remarkably fast, but a strong political willingness to foster this progress and develop essential products is still missing,” said Italian MEP Umberto Guidoni.
“We must get ready for a new public-private partnership; politicians must have their say to make sure more funds are available to deal with the problem.”
Tido Von Schoen-Angerer, of Medecins Sans Frontiere, told MEPs that “neglected diseases do not represent a commercially viable market for multinationals.”
“That is why an overwhelming majority of those affected throughout the world do not have access to safe, affordable diagnostics, drugs and vaccines.”
And the experts urged the EU to include neglected diseases in the upcoming seventh Research Framework Programme.
“So far, the EU has launched initiatives focusing only on HIV, malaria and tuberculosis, the big three” said DNDi’s Els Torreele.
“The big three must become the big four to include neglected diseases.”
“The seventh framework programme is an opportunity for immediate action; its mechanisms should be more flexible to include neglected diseases.”
The profit-driven model of drug development does not leave any room for the development of essential health tools for neglected diseases, added Guidoni.
“Strong political leadership in addressing this relevant but forgotten issue is needed to making global health and medicines a strategic sector and to set R&D priorities to meet, above all, the needs of patients who are too often neglected in the current short-sighted profit-led model."
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