Glaxo Open Sources Malaria Drug Search Data

smellsofbikes writes "GlaxoSmithKline, the world's second-largest pharmaceutical company, is putting thousands of possible malaria-treating drugs into the public domain in a move that the Wall Street Journal calls a 'Linux approach' to pharmaceutical screening. Andrew Witty, who is described as the boss of GSK, says the company thinks it is 'imperative to earn the trust of society, not just by meeting expectations but by exceeding them.' Of course, synthesis or discovery of new chemicals is cheap compared to efficacy and qualification studies, but this is a refreshing change from not handing out any information until after everything is patented."

Comments

Start of something

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope, sincerely, that this is the start of more collaborative efforts on the part of drug companies. We're quick to bash them but I believe we should applaud this effort.

Re:Start of something

[shipbrick]

I agree, we should take the facts and be thankful. Whatever their true motives, we do not know (perhaps they just don't think they'll ever profit from malaria drugs, etc). We'll see how many negative comments regarding this are posted... But before that happens, I'd advise readers to always be skeptical, but never cynical.

Re:Start of something

[hedwards]

I'm not surprised they'd be doing this with malaria drugs given who they're targeting with them they're not particularly profitable. I wouldn't be surprised if they try this with antibiotics next. Neither set of drugs are particularly profitable and are done mainly as a community service.

Re:Start of something

[hjf]

greetings from Chaco, Argentina, where we've been having dengue outbreaks lately (a couple of times a year there's a day when government asks you to go into your backyard (you can refuse, of course) to check if you have anything where mosquitos could reproduce -- tires, jars, etc. it's more about teaching the poor people.
we've also had city-wide fumigations (according to my neighbor, who does that for a living, it's pretty much useless). but it's kinda fun looking at the trucks with speakers yelling that this is good for us, open the doors and windows, let the poison in (!), spraying everything, and that weird, heavy mist that floats just above the ground... it's like a movie.

also, you forgot to mention Chagas disease.

but now seriously, last year we had the Influenza A "outbreak" when everybody panicked and said the government isnt doing anything to protect us... so this year they spent a couple of hundreds of millions for the vaccine. but today no one remembers (or cares) about Influenza A.

so in short, some countries are willing to spend lots of money if they make a good enough PR stunt. so i still wonder why they're releasing all this data. maybe it's too old? maybe it's nearly useless? I mean we have the diseases here. we do (believe or not) have R&D and all. I mean we're a country with nuclear research. We build and sell nuclear reactors to Australia, and we have our own sources of nuclear fuel (still wonder why the US lets us do that. of course we don't have their permission to use that for weapons), really, I was surprised with this news.

Re:Start of something

[somenickname]

Interestingly enough, my knowledge of Dengue only comes from living in Argentina for the last 10 years and remembering it being big in the papers a year or two ago before I left. The reason that millions of dollars can be appropriated to treat something like Influenza A is that a vaccine exists. And it exists because it also affects rich countries that can shell out enough money to make the R&D worth the investment.

You are not supposed to say that.

[GNUALMAFUERTE]

'imperative to earn the trust of society, not just by meeting expectations but by exceeding them.

If you want to earn the trust of society, you should just do the right thing.

Explicitly stating that you want to earn the trust of the society is something you do in front of the shareholders, not publicly.

We already know you want our trust, and we already know what you'll do with it if you ever get it back.

Re:Old News

[Sarten-X]

Outside of the pharmaceutical world, this is still better than nothing.

Re:Old News

[shipbrick]

I'd guess they are also willing to provide samples, but I don't know. Anyhow, in the research world, a picture of a molecule is just as good to an medicinal and/or organic chemist, they can figure out how to synthesize it themselves and perhaps they might even be able to get some help by looking at the patents. Some medicinal chemists make tons of molecules for a purpose, only to find out they don't have any activity. This info would allow them to start with a parent compound they know will have some activity. They can then expand and make analogs potentially discovering new chemistry (tools) in the process. They would then likely try to make 'better' compounds while they or a biologist can try to find out the mechanism of how the compounds kill malaria. Even if this doesn't yield a cure, figuring out these mechanisms can serendipitously progress science, and we can learn even from the misses. In science, it's common to go down a road and find a dead end, but at least then we can put up a sign and tell others to avoid that road, so they can go down a different road in hope of finding whatever it is we are looking for (malaria treatments in this case). The more knowledge we obtain, the better our chances are...

The birth of GlaxOSS ?

[freaker_TuC]

Let's hope they get lots of good feedback, so, they will get the message not "everything" has to be closed-sourced.

This might be a good first incentive of another sector opening up in business.

It might be a PR stunt, but if this goes right, common people will see there are other possibilities; making it less feasable for this sector to force the impossible in the future...

I think all research for the 5 or 10 most common diseases should be open-sourced towards the world, for all to anticipate in such research.

Taking it with a big grain of salt

[2Bits]

I'm taking it with a big grain of salt. The article only said that Glaxo would publish information of chemical compounds that have potential to act against the parasite that causes malaria , it didn't say that those are real final drugs that a third-world pharmaceutical factory can take to produce tablets. As anyone in the drug research would know (I'm only a programmer), in order to discover a cure, researchers generate thousands, or even millions, of chemical compounds to study. The majority of them are not useful for anything. They are not publishing information about confirmed hits.

The other thing I'm questioning is the patents. It just said the patents are waived for studying, it didn't say about manufacturing and marketing. What if one of the compound published turned out to be a hit, and Glaxo had patented it. Can others still use it without royalties? What about the IP of any derivatives?

Still a lot of questions to be answered.

Thankful my left boot!

[syousef]

I agree, we should take the facts and be thankful.

Oh thank you sir. I'm so greatful sir. Only sir do you think sir that you might find it in your heart sir to not lock up my own genome sir? I was hoping that we who share the genome sir would be able to use it to fight disease sir along with all those other drugs sir that you filed for first sir but you see sir if you lock it up sir many of us will die sir. May I lick your boot now sir?

But seriously, WHY should I be thankful to companies who are behaving badly and manipulating the law so as to maximise their own profits despite the death and suffering it causes, just because they released some small subset of the data? Are you mad? If I am mugged and beaten up should I be thankful that my attacker only laid the boot in 4 times instead of 5?