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Modest rise reported in industry research on infectious diseases of poverty

1 Dec 2008

Paul Chinnock

Source: International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers & Associations (see original article)

The International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers & Associations (IFPMA) says that medicine and vaccine projects undertaken by its member companies has increased to 67, up from 58 a year ago. The figures appear in the industry body’s ‘Status Report on Pharmaceutical Industry R&D for Diseases of the Developing World.’

However, tuberculosis (21 projects) and malaria (28) continue to attract the most attention from the industry. The number of projects addressing other ‘developing world diseases’ is only eleven, an increase of three since last year.

According to the IFPMA report, ongoing medicine R&D projects have increased from 50 to 58, while the range of active vaccine projects expanded from eight to nine. Sleeping sickness projects increased from one to three, and leishmaniasis projects from one to two. There were no projects for Chagas’ disease involving member companies active in 2007; in 2008 there are two. Several leads in dengue research turned out to be not worth pursuing. In total, eight R&D projects were stopped, mainly due to lack of efficacy or unacceptable side effects. There are no current projects on, for example, schistosomiasis or lymphatic filariasis.

Most current projects (49 of the 58) are being undertaken in conjunction with product development partnerships.

The full report (seven pages) may be accessed here.

IFPMA has also recently published the results of a survey of its members looking at the value of the development assistance they have provided to low- and middle-income companies since the launch of the Millennium Development Goals in 2000. The total amounts to $9.2 billion, of which $2.4bn was in 2007 alone. The assistance provided includes donations of medicines, vaccines, diagnostics, equipment, other material and labour. In 2005 the figure was $1.5bn, which IFPMA says amounts to 11% of the total $13.4bn international development assistance for that year, as estimated by the OECD. Further details here.

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