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Issue 3
8th
February 2010
C&I Magazine
GSK anti-malarial chemicals giveaway
Emma Dorey,
08/02/2010
Drug giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) has
announced an initiative to encourage
new research into neglected tropical
diseases, primarily malaria. Among its
plans is a decision to make thousands
of anti-malarial compounds freely
available to researchers – news that
has been cautiously welcomed.
As part of its ‘open innovation’
strategy, GSK will spend $8m in
seed funding to establish an ‘open
lab,’ a GSK-owned and operated
R&D facility in Spain to which 60
scientists from around the world will
have access.
Moreover, to help find new
treatments for malaria, GSK plans to
make 13,500 anti-malaria compounds
– chemical structures and assay data
– freely available to researchers.
GSK says the compounds have been
screened from its pharmaceutical
library of more than 2m molecules
for any that may inhibit Plasmodium
falciparum, the parasite that causes
the deadliest form of malaria.
In comments to the Council on
Foreign Relations in New York, GSK’s
ceo Andrew Witty said the move was
partly to earn the trust of society. ‘We
want to be a company that is truly a
partner in addressing the healthcare
challenges in the world’s poorest
countries, no matter how difficult
they are,’ he said.
With the image of big pharma
damaged by drug safety revelations
and scandal, however, some critics
might suggest that GSK will have
already cherry-picked the most
promising compounds from its
library before releasing the rest as an
exercise in public relations.
Nevertheless, the move has
been well received. ‘The public
availability of these compounds
for malaria research is an excellent
idea. Providing access to this level of
information could revolutionise the
urgent search for new medicines to
tackle malaria,’ says Tim Wells, chief
scientific officer of the Medicines for
Malaria Venture (MMV), which helped
GSK to screen the compounds. Wells
says GSK is working on a dozen or
so of the identified compounds and
that MMV is eager to conduct further
research on some of the others. ‘Not
all chemists and biologists find the
same compounds exciting,’ he points
out.
Peter Winstanley, head of the
school of clinical sciences at the
University of Liverpool, UK, also
welcomed the plans. However,
Winstanley points out that GSK is
making the structures and their
supporting data – not the library –
available, and that researchers might
need to synthesise the compounds
that they want to work on.
While it is a good thing to have
13,500 hits, he says, hits are a long
way from leads, which themselves
can be 20 years and several
hundreds of millions of dollars away
from prescription drugs. ‘So this is
a well meant and helpful gesture,
and I believe it will be useful,’ says
Winstanley. ‘But do not expect new
miracle drugs at once, and do not
expect them without the usual blood,
sweat, tears, major investment and
pharmaceutical R&D knowhow.’