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India Launches Open Source Drug Discovery

Posted by timothy on from the with-enough-eyes-all-bugs-are-shallow dept.

sas-dot writes "India today launched a unique collaborative programme to discover drugs for infectious diseases common to the developing countries. The 'Open Source Drug Discovery' (OSDD) programme, launched by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), aims to build a consortium of global researchers and bypass the patent regime, which makes drugs expensive." Of course, all those pesky research, development and liability costs help, too.

5 of 30 comments (clear)

  1. Re:fp by boarder8925 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Hopefully OSSD will soon find a cure for braindead first posts . . . .

    --
    Keep your eyes to the sky.
  2. Twice as much on marketing by jamie · · Score: 3, Interesting

    the U.S. pharmaceutical industry spent 24.4% of the sales dollar on promotion, versus 13.4% for research and development

    Big Pharma Spends More On Advertising Than Research And Development, Study Finds, Jan. 7, 2008

    1. Re:Twice as much on marketing by mdfst13 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Where's the other 62% go? Also, according to that report, free samples are promotion costs.

      Link to actual study: The Cost of Pushing Pills: A New Estimate of Pharmaceutical Promotion Expenditures in the United States

      I am not sure that free samples should be counted as a marketing cost. If they are counted, then they should be counted based on the cost to the company, not the retail cost (what the company would get if it had sold the sample). Use of such RIAA like tactics makes me very suspicious of the study. Such an obvious flaw strongly suggests that they picked the data to fit their theory rather than picking a theory to fit the data.

      They also increased their estimate by 30% for "unmonitored" expenses. I.e. they assume that there is uncollected data. They then claim that this still under reports expenses by alleging that there are other expense categories that are not included. They have no references for the 30% number; no evidence that 30% is the right number; no evidence that the other expense categories are not already included in the 30%.

      The best that could be said for this report is that it may be just as accurate as the reports from the pharmaceutical companies it decries.

  3. Sounds like a good idea, but.. by Chris+Rhodes · · Score: 3, Interesting

    If it is truly open, won't corps just follow the research then throw money into their own labs at the end of the project? Then they could patent the chemical.

    How it works

    It seems to me that the project could be leeched off of fairly easily. E.g., at work package 10.

    Other than that, it is the inevitable result of high prices and monopolies. Open source, coops, public libraries; they all exist to let a larger group of people get access to limited resources for less. That's an interesting article.

  4. Yes but mostly No by Chris+Rhodes · · Score: 3, Informative

    The geographical location of the patent (U.S., Europe or China) will exclude foreign companies who are infringing. India can always complain and/or challenge the patents, but first they'll be excluded from some of the biggest markets in the world.

    Also, India is pro-patent when it comes to pharmaceuticals. So it is just as likely that Indian companies will leech off this research. Remember that it is the actual drug molecule that is patented.

    Take for example, escitalopram and citalopram, escitalopram is an enantiomer of citalopram. Escitalopram is patented by Forest Labs, and marketed as Lexapro. Lexapro was created and patented by Forest Labs (lundbeck) because citalopram (Celexa) lost its patent in 2003. Both drugs were designed to treat major depression and generalized anxiety disorder.

    It isn't the research that gets patented. It is the drug. In the case of citalopram and escitalopram, two drugs that are merely stereoisomers (mirror images.)