Research must go on

In the first week of December 2005, industry representatives, government officials, medical researchers and ngo delegates gathered in Delhi to find ways of "Living with trips" -- they were at an eponymous workshop organised by the Indian Council for Medical Research (icmr) and the international ngo, Centre for Management of Intellectual Property in Health Research and Development . T he meet was timely: though the Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (trips) have so far not raised drug prices appreciably or restricted access to drugs, many Third World researchers are wary of this intellectual property rights regime. The workshop held up public-private-partnerships (ppp) that are armed with expertise to unravel complexities of intellectual property laws as a way, developing country researchers could deal with trips.

The presentations at the meet offered insight into a few such successful partnerships. The Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative (dndi) was among those discussed. Since 2003, this initiative has focused its energies in making sure that public sector research gets commercialised. T his is significant for much public sector research in the Third World comes up against financial hurdles and does not make it to the markets. Five public sector institutions -- the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation of Brazil, the icmr, Kenya's Medical Research Institute, Malaysia's ministry of health and France's Pasteur Institute an international ngo, Mdecins sans Frontires and the Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases (an undp, World Bank and World Health Organization project) -- have collaborated in dndi. T he partnership has come out with two new, non-patented malaria treatments, which will be commercialised soon.

The Medicines for Malaria Venture (mmv) was another successful partnership held up for emulation at the workshop; launched in 1999, the project brings together the World Health Organization (who) and the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Associations . mmv is working on more than 20 projects and has recently collaborated with the Indian pharma major Ranbaxy Laboratories to develop a new anti-malarial drug, rbx 11160. This is the first synthetic anti-malarial drug and can be produced inexpensively and quickly. The extant drugs are effective against malaria but since these are derived from Artemisia -- a herb -- they are costly and are beyond the reach of many malaria victims in poor countries. The new anti-malarial is about to enter the second phase of trials in India, Thailand and Africa. mmv intends to develop at least another new anti-malarial drug before 2010.

For the Third World Most partnerships discussed at Living with trips research on diseases afflicting people in the Third World: a very pertinent effort because such maladies don't figure on the research agenda of developed country institutions. Another significant partnership which did not come up at the meet is the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (csir)- piloted New Millennium Indian Technology Leadership Initiative (nmitli). The programme that began in 2001 has 37 projects on its anvil, 5 of them on drugs and pharmaceuticals. The projects are chosen after nationwide consultation and though csir monitors their progress, it does not get any direct returns. The profits are shared equally between the project's participants. Recently, a project under nmitli's aegis has begun clinical trials of a drug against tuberculosis: a significant success, for the current anti-tuberculosis drug is of 1960s vintage. Used in combination with other drugs, the new drug can cure tuberculosis in two months; the existing drug takes around six months to cure.

nmitli is also working to give a fillip to traditional system of medicines. A drug against psoriasis developed in accordance with the Siddha system of medicine is slated to complete its second phase of clinical trials by June 2006.

Though the workshop focused mainly on partnerships, the participants were quite unequivocal that these are not the sole way out of trips: issues related to pricing, and accessing patent data also need to be stressed upon. Kanikaram Satyanarayana, icmr summed up the meet's objectives: "This is going to be a continuous process.

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