We all know of the extraordinary generosity of some of America’s wealthiest citizens. Warren Buffet. Bill and Melinda Gates. But what we might not know, and what is worthy of reporting, are the contributions of some of the world’s most powerful pharmaceutical companies, seldom known for their altruism. Indeed, I have blogged against many of the policies embraced by these behemoths – and my passions continue to be equally committed to those efforts to create accountability and competition in the world of American prescription drugs – but at some point, even I have to present moments when drug companies have shined brightly. And in the world of open-source solutions to some of this planet’s complex medical issues, two particular examples of game-changing contributions from this pharma world come to mind.
Merk: Some problems are so massive and obviously impossible to solve that they invite a massive collaboration effort, often spurred on by the government. So was the case of the DNA-focused Human Genome Project, begun in 1990 led by James Watson at the U.S. National Institutes of Health, with the goal of identifying all of the individual genes that make up the human species. Battles over the right to patent such discoveries by individual contributors increased the complexity of the task, even though a completed research project was essential to enable the future of medical research.
By the mid-1990s, about 20% of gene research was covered by private patents. In 1995, one holder of many of these patents, Merck Pharmaceuticals, realized the magnitude of the blockage that such private research meant for the entire process and released 15,000 human gene sequences to the general public through its Merck Gene Index. In 1999, a non-profit consortium of eleven pharmaceutical companies opened up collaboration to create “a public biological blueprint for all human life.” By 2003, the basics of the entire genome had been identified, and in 2006, the significance of the Human Genome Project reached a new plateau as the sequence for the last unmapped human chromosome was published. With this profoundly complex body of knowledge, the pharmaceutical and academic worlds were empowered to develop an entirely new body of medical solutions for the benefit of all of us.
GlaxoSmithKline: Malaria has been the scourge of impoverished nations for as long as history has been recorded. Sapping the strength – even the very life – out of impoverished people in poor and underdeveloped nations, malaria has stood in the way of progress and general improvements in the quality of life long before the HIV epidemic took its toll. In Africa alone, mosquito-borne malaria kills a million people a year; 300 million a year are afflicted all over the earth.
The January 20th Sphere.com notes: “GlaxoSmithKline will allow free access to 13,500 molecules that represent potential malaria treatments and pour millions of dollars into an ‘Open Lab’ for independent research teams to investigate other tropical diseases… The London-based Glaxo, the world's third-largest drug company, is testing its malaria vaccine on 16,000 people and will post its information to scientific journals. It will also cooperate with other companies in Europe and the United States, as well as disease research centers. It hopes to have the vaccine ready for approval by 2012…‘This is the furthest anybody's gone,’ Glaxo's chief executive, Andrew Witty, said in an interview with Bloomberg News. ‘Nobody has put in the public domain the product of a two-million screen’ of small molecules, he said… These are essentially the building blocks from which all of our drugs eventually come.’” They could have opted for the billions of additional dollars in global revenues that such a vaccine could represent. Instead, they have invited the open collaboration to this entire industry to create a solution that does not rest on one company’s making massive profits from preventing his horrific disease.
Sometimes, I fight against these big companies. Sometimes, I don’t.
I’m Peter Dekom, and fairness is important to me.
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