Patent pool for infectious disease research: new developments

28 Jan 2010

Patrick Adams

Source: BIO Ventures for Global Health

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An independent, non-profit organization BIO Ventures for Global Health (BVGH) will take on the administration of a “patent pool” intended to facilitate the creation of new treatments for the infectious diseases of poverty.

GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) the world’s second biggest pharmaceutical company set up the Intellectual Property (IP) Pool in March 2009. In July, Alnylam Pharmaceuticals – a US-based company developing novel therapeutics based on RNA interference (RNAi) – said it would contribute more than 1500 issued or pending patents to the IP Pool. And last week GSK announced it was also making public the details of some 13,500 compounds that might have potential in the treatment of malaria – see TropIKA.net News.

The aim is to assist in the discovery and development of new medicines for the treatment of 16 infectious diseases. By adopting a more accessible approach to intellectual property, the pool facilitates access to compounds and technologies and, most importantly, industrial know-how for organizations that want to conduct research on treatments for these neglected diseases.

Medicines have been “slow in coming”

BVGH, launched in 2004, is a non-profit organization that seeks to harness the resources of the biotechnology industry to create new medicines for neglected diseases of the developing world. Chief Executive Officer Melinda Moree said, “New medicines for diseases that primarily affect the poor in developing countries have been slow in coming because, although the market is large in numbers, most of the people affected and their governments cannot afford to pay even moderate prices. This means that much of the development of new medicines is taking place in innovative non-profits and academic research centres.

“For many of these academic and global health non-profit groups, however, intellectual property can be perceived as preventing rather than enabling their work. I am excited to use this new role to help those working on developing products for neglected diseases speed up their efforts by accessing the patents, technologies, and product development expertise available in the IP Pool.”

As the pool’s administrator, BVGH will organize disease-specific meetings that identify the gaps in expertise and intellectual property that currently exist in product development for neglected diseases. BIVGH will then help global health researchers work with industry to fill these gaps so that the resources generously made available by companies will be used to create medicines for neglected diseases faster and more efficiently.

Other collaborations

The Emory Institute for Drug Discovery is the newest member of the IP Pool. Established in August 2009, the EIDD has the dual mission of carrying out early-stage discovery and preclinical drug research aimed at developing small-molecule therapeutics and training new generations of researchers in a multidisciplinary drug discovery environment. The EIDD focuses on commercially neglected diseases, global health partnerships, mentored research, and multidisciplinary interactions both within and outside the University.

“The EIDD is an excellent model that preserves the academic independence of university-based laboratory research,” says EIDD director Dennis Liotta, PhD. “We look forward to accessing and contributing to this knowledge pool and to making significant progress in addressing these challenging and devastating diseases.”

GSK will collaborate with Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, and also with the South African company iThemba Pharmaceuticals using the IP Pool to encourage research and discovery into new medicines to treat tuberculosis. iThemba, founded in 2003 by Liotta and research partners in the UK, US and South Africa, is committed to developing new and affordable medicines for infectious diseases of the poor.