Abstract
In this article, we discuss the challenges, recent developments and new thinking on drug R&D for neglected diseases through public–private partnerships. The focus on virtual drug discovery and development as operationalized through these partnerships brings many advantages, as well as scientific and managerial challenges. Some are common to those faced by all drug R&D ventures. Others, for example the need for drugs with a very low cost of manufacture that are easy to use in resource-poor environments and an active engagement in disease-endemic countries, are unique to this novel paradigm.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Relevant articles
Open Access articles citing this article.
-
Navigating the open innovation paradox: an integrative framework for adopting open innovation in pharmaceutical R&D in developing countries
The Journal of Technology Transfer Open Access 18 August 2022
-
Activity of the antiarrhythmic drug amiodarone against Leishmania (L.) infantum: an in vitro and in vivo approach
Journal of Venomous Animals and Toxins including Tropical Diseases Open Access 25 October 2018
Access options
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 12 print issues and online access
$209.00 per year
only $17.42 per issue
Buy this article
- Purchase on Springer Link
- Instant access to full article PDF
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
References
Trouiller, P. et al. Drugs development for neglected diseases: a deficient market and a public health policy failure. Lancet 359, 2188–2194 (2002).
Mrazek, M. F. & Mossialos, E. Stimulating pharmaceutical research and development for neglected diseases. Health Policy (New York) 64, 75–88 (2003).
Haffner, M. E., Whitley, J. & Moses, M. Two decades of orphan product development. Nature Rev. Drug Discov. 1, 821–825 (2002).
Trouiller, P. et al. Drugs for neglected diseases: a failure of the market and public health failure. Trop. Med. Int. Health 6, 945–951 (2001).
Sachs, J. The link of public health and economic development. Office of Health Economics, London (2001).
Kettler, H. E. & Modi, R. Building local research and development capacity for prevention and cure of neglected diseases: the case for India. Bull. World Health Organization 79, 742–747 (2001).
Medecins Sans Frontieres Access to Essential Medicines Campaign. Fatal imbalance, the crises in research and development for drugs for neglected diseases (2001).
Reich, M. R. The global drug gap. Science 287, 1979–1981 (2000).
Remme, J. F. H. et al. Strategic emphasis for tropical disease research. A TDR perspective. Trends Parasitol. 18, 421–426 (2002).
Nossal, G. J. Modern medicine and global communicable diseases: new partnerships for progress. Aust. NZ J. Med. 30, 267–271 (2000).
Yamey, G. Public sector must develop drugs for neglected diseases. BMJ 324, 698 (2002).
Kettler, H. & Towse, A. Public–private partnerships for research and development: medicines and vaccines for diseases of poverty. Office of Health Economics, London (2002).
Bruneton, C. et al. The drug trade between European countries and developing countries. Med. Trop. (Mars) 57, 375–379 (1997).
Global Forum for Health Research. The 10/90 report of research 2001–2002. Global Forum for Health Research, Geneva (2002).
Widdus, R. Public–private partnerships for health: their main targets, their diversity, and their future directions. Bull. World Health Organization 79, 728–734 (2001).
Macroeconomics and Health: Investing in Health for Economic Development. Report of the Commission on Macroeconomics for Health, World Health Organisation, Geneva (2001).
Veekan, H. & Pecoule, B. Drugs for 'neglected diseases': a bitter pill. Trop. Med. Int. Health 5, 309–311 (2000).
Froese, E. H. Meeting the pharmaceutical needs of a developing country. World Health Forum 12, 25–28 (1991).
Bryceson, A. Current issues in the treatment of visceral leishmaniasis. Med. Microbiol. Immunol. (Berl.) 190, 81–84 (2001).
Legros, D. et al. Treatment of human African trypanosomiasis: present situation and needs for research and development. Lancet 2, 437–440 (2002).
Seawort, B. J. Multidrug-resistant tuberculosis. Infect. Dis. Clin. North Am. 16, 73–105 (2002).
Rosenthal, P. J. Antimalarial Chemotherapy: Mechanisms of Action, Resistance, and New Directions in Drug Discovery (Humana, Totowa, 2001).
Morel, C. M. Reaching maturity: 25 years of the TDR. Parasitol. Today 16, 503–551 (2000).
Ridley R. G. Putting the partnership into public–private partnerships. Bull. World Health Organization 79, 694 (2001).
Ridley, R. G. Medical need, scientific opportunity and the drive for antimalarials. Nature 415, 686–693 (2002).
TDR News. MMV: New Medicines for Malaria Venture. February (1999).
Wheeler, C. & Berkley, S. Initial lessons from public–private partnerships in drug and vaccine development. Bull. World Health Organization 79, 728–734 (2001).
Ridley, R. G. et al. Round table. A role of public–private partnerships in controlling neglected diseases. Bull. World Health Organization 79, 771–777 (2001).
Nagle, T., Berg, C., Nassr, R. & Pang, K. The further evolution of biotech. Nature Rev. Drug Discov. 2, 75–79 (2003).
Kettler, H. & White, K. Valuing industry contributions to public–private partnerships for health product development. (Initiative for Public–Private Partnerships for Health, 2003).
Medicines for Malaria Venture. Annual Report (2002).
Coates, A. et al. The future challenges facing the development of new antimicrobial drugs. Nature Rev. Drug Discov. 1, 895–909 (2002).
Ridley, R. G. Product R&D for neglected diseases: twenty-seven years of WHO/TDR experiences with public–private partnerships. EMBO Rep. 4, S43–S46 (2003).
Sundar, S. et al. Oral miltefosine for Indian visceral leishmaniasis. N. Engl. J. Med. 347, 1739–1746 (2002).
Lang, T. & Greenwood, B. The development of Lapdap, an affordable new treatment for malaria. Lancet Infect. Dis. 3, 162–167 (2003).
Winstanley, P. Chlorproguanil-dapsone (LAPDAP) for uncomplicated falciparum malaria. Trop. Med. Int. Health 6, 952–954 (2001).
Medicines for Malaria Venture. Business Plan (2003).
Vennerstrom, J. L. et al. Spiro and Dispiro 1,2, 4-trioxolanes antimalarials. US patent 6,486,199 filed (2002).
Report of the Advisory Committee on Health Research: Genomic and world health. World Health Organization, Geneva (2002).
Gutierrez, J. A. Genomics: from novel genes to new therapeutics in parasitolgy. Int. J. Parasitol. 30, 247–252 (2000).
Rosamond, J. & Allsop, A. Harnessing the power of the genome in the search for new antibiotics. Science 287, 1973–1976 (2000).
Gardner, J. et al. Genome of the human malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum. Nature 419, 498–511 (2002).
Ersfeld, K. Genomes and genome projects of protozoan parasites. Curr. Issues Mol. Biol. 5, 61–74 (2003).
DiMasi, J. A. et al. Cost of innovation in the pharmaceutical industry. J. Health Econ. 10, 107–142 (1991).
Barry, C. E. et al. DNA microarrays and combinatorial chemical libraries: tools for the drug discovery pipeline. Int. J. Tuberc. Lung Dis. 4, S189–S193 (2000).
Buysse, J. The role of genomics in antibacterial target discovery. Curr. Med. Chem. 8, 1763–1776 (2001).
Murray D. M. & Shinket, R. Discovery and development of a genomic drug. Curr. Drug Disc. June, 27–33 (2003).
Mattieu, M. P. Parexel's pharmaceutical R&D statistical sourcebook. Parexel International Corp. Waltham, MA (2002/2003).
Frost, L. & Reich, M. Mectizan donation program: origins, experiences, and relationships with coordinating bodies for onchocerciasis control. Boston, MA, Harvard School of Public Health (1998).
Hursey, B. S. The programme against African trypanosomiasis: aims, objectives and achievements. Trends Parasitol. 17, 2–3 (2001).
Guerin, P. J. et al. Visceral leishmaniasis: current status of control, diagnosis, and treatment, and a proposed research and development agenda. Lancet Infect. Dis. 2, 494–501 (2002).
Zumla, A. Drugs for neglected diseases. Lancet Infect. Dis. 2, 393 (2002).
Antimalarial drug combination therapy. Report of WHO Technical Consultation (2001).
Stead, A. M. W. et al. Diamidine compounds: selective uptake and targeting in Plasmodium falciparum. Mol. Pharmacol. 59, 1298–1306 (2002).
Gelb, M. H. et al. Protein farnesyltransferases: piggy-back medicinal chemistry targets for the development of antitrypanosomatids and antimalarial therapeutics. Mol. Biochem. Parasitol. 126, 155–163 (2003).
Rosenthal, P. J. et al. Cysteine proteases of malaria parasites: targets for chemotherapy. Curr. Pharm. Des. 8, 1659–1672 (2002).
MMV/GSK Press Release, June (2003) (see www.mmv.org).
Nwaka, S. Prospective antimalarial drug discovery and development. TDR Scientific Working Group on Malaria. March (2003).
Bhattacharya, S. Capacity building for clinical trials: the investigator's perspective, TDR News 69, November (2002).
Medaglini, D. & Hoeveler, A. The European research efforts on HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis. Vaccines 21, S116–S120 (2003).
Dickson, D. WHO and industry combine to form ethics body. Nature Med. 8, 645 (2002).
Ridley, R. Antimalarial drug discovery and development: an industrial perspective. Exp. Parasitol. 87, 293–304 (1997).
Roberts, S. A. Drug metabolism and pharmacokinetics in drug discovery. Curr. Opin. Drug Discov. Devel. 6, 66–80 (2003).
Frantz, S. Screening the right candidate. Nature Rev. Drug Discov. 2, 331 (2003)
Di, L. & Kerns, E. H. Profiling drug-like properties in discovery research. Curr. Opin. Chem. Biol. 7, 402–408 (2003).
Lipinski, C., Lombardo, F., Dominy, B. & Feeney, P. Experimental and computational approaches to estimate solubility in drug discovery and development settings. Adv. Drug Deliv. Rev. 23, 3–25 (1997).
Venkatesh, S. & Lipper, R. Role of the development scientist in compound lead selection and optimization. J. Pharm. Sci. 89, 145–154 (2000).
Keatley, K. L. A comparison of the U. S. EPA FIFRA GLP standards with the U. S. FDA GLP standards for nonclinical laboratory studies. Qual. Assur. 7, 147–154 (1999).
Molzon, J. The Common Technical Document: the changing face of the New Drug Application. Nature Rev. Drug Discov. 2, 71–74 (2003).
Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development. Impact Reports (1999 and 2000).
Food and Drug Administration, HHS. International Conference on Harmonisation; guidance on M4 common technical document; availability. Notice. Fed Regist. 66, 52634–52637 (2001).
DiMasi, J. A., Hansen, R. W. & Grabowski, H. G. The price of innovation: new estimates of drug development costs. J. Health Econ. 22, 157–185 (2003).
Acknowledgements
We thank M. Bendig and D. Kioy for their assistance in conceptualizing Box 3. We thank S. Campbell for his contributions to Box 4. We thank P. Rosenthal, C. Morel and C. Craft for critical reading of the manuscript.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Related links
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Nwaka, S., Ridley, R. Virtual drug discovery and development for neglected diseases through public–private partnerships. Nat Rev Drug Discov 2, 919–928 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrd1230
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrd1230
This article is cited by
-
Public-Private Partnerships and the Landscape of Neglected Tropical Disease Research: The Shifting Logic and Spaces of Knowledge Production
Minerva (2023)
-
Navigating the open innovation paradox: an integrative framework for adopting open innovation in pharmaceutical R&D in developing countries
The Journal of Technology Transfer (2023)
-
Associating 197 Chinese herbal medicine with drug targets and diseases using the similarity ensemble approach
Acta Pharmacologica Sinica (2020)
-
Activity of the antiarrhythmic drug amiodarone against Leishmania (L.) infantum: an in vitro and in vivo approach
Journal of Venomous Animals and Toxins including Tropical Diseases (2018)
-
Plants of Brazilian restingas with tripanocide activity against Trypanosoma cruzi strains
Journal of Bioenergetics and Biomembranes (2017)