Healthy Skepticism Library item: 17045

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Publication type: news

Boseley S
How GlaxoSmithKline chief has changed the agenda for big pharma
The Guardian 2010 Jan 20
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/jan/20/glaxosmithkline-andrew-witty-drugs-developing-world

Abstract:

• Shift in expectations over health in developing world
• Critics say GSK hopes for profits in future years

Full text:

Few who hear him doubt Andrew Witty’s desire to improve health in the developing world is sincere. But critics of GlaxoSmithKline’s chief executive point out that his moves to reduce the price of medicine in poor countries have cost Britain’s biggest drug company little, and that there may be benefits in future years from business in emerging markets.

What GSK has done is shift pharma’s agenda. Even if other companies will not join in with its patent pool, declining to allow scientists to explore their patented compounds to see if any could become treatments for neglected diseases, the entire industry has to deal with changing expectations. Witty talks of duties and responsibilities for drug companies who have been lambasted for an uncaring pursuit of profits and tarred with their attempt to use the courts to block access to cheap medicines for Aids in South Africa 10 years ago.

Witty’s original proposals dropped out of the blue last February. They involved price cuts for drugs in the poorest countries and a promise to reinvest in the local economy 20% of any profits GSK made there. He made no secret of the small amounts of money involved – GSK’s total profits are not more than about £5m in the least developed countries (LDCs) where few can afford their drugs. The amount ploughed back into local projects will be about £1.5m for the last year. Only small change for GSK, but, says Witty: “Small change in Ethiopia goes a long way.”

The move which was the most significant was the announcement that GSK would form a patent pool for neglected tropical diseases, such as malaria, sleeping sickness and river blindness. The company duly listed all its patented compounds that might possibly be useful in the search for new treatments and invited researchers to investigate them.

Witty said he hoped other companies would join in. One biotech did, but none of the big pharmaceutical companies have shown any interest. Nor did scientists queue up to investigate the compounds in the pool.

Dr Bernard Pécoul, executive director of the Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative, said he was not surprised. “They consulted us. We said the patent pool isn’t enough. You also need to share the knowledge you have [of these compounds],” he said. GSK took note. The patent pool has become a “knowledge pool”. And a fund of $8m has been set up to support scientists with ideas from around the world who would like to go to GSK’s tropical disease research labs in Tres Cantos, Spain, and explore that knowledge.

If GSK thought its patent pool for neglected diseases would get it off the hook when it comes to its patents on HIV drugs, it was wrong. Oxfam was just one of the organisations that took the opportunity today to return to the HIV argument.

“GSK today took welcome steps to improve research and development for diseases neglected by large pharmaceutical firms,” said Dr Mohga Kamal-Yanni, senior health policy adviser.

“But the company is still dragging its feet on a more pressing problem – the lack of affordable and effective medicines for people with drug-resistant HIV. Lives are at risk because of a lack of reasonably-priced second-generation anti-retrovirals and lack of children’s medicines. GSK is standing in the way of a solution by failing to join Unitaid’s patent pool which is designed to improve access to effective affordable medicines.”

The nub of the problem – and the reason why Witty’s innovations launched a year ago have not borne more fruit – is that pharma companies don’t talk to each other, let alone collaborate. They compete. Witty may invite other companies to join a patent pool for neglected diseases – where none of them stand to make any money because only poor people get them – but he is reluctant to join a patent pool for HIV drugs which are highly lucrative in the wealthy world.

Nonetheless, his attitude seems more placatory than it was. GSK is now talking seriously with Unitaid, the organisation formed by donor governments including the UK’s which is attempting to form the pool. Last year GSK formed a company called Viiv, of which it owns 85% and Pfizer 15%, which is supposed to be a collaboration. Viiv has committed itself to helping Unitaid set up the pool, although it has not committed to putting in any patents.

GSK, says Pécoul, is more innovative than others. “They are trying to propose something a little bit different.” But other big companies are moving too.

“I feel like we’ve made progress. We have forever moved GSK forward and into a different place in the way we think about the developing world and the LDCs,” said Witty.