Recent news
February 2011
Pharmaceutical company head discusses drug development for global health diseases
February 10, 2011 -- In a recent interview with Forbes, Paul Herring—head of corporate research at Novartis and chair of the company’s Institute for Tropical Diseases—discusses research and development for drugs to treat global health diseases, such as tuberculosis, malaria, and dengue fever. “We are a commercial organization and we are responsible to shareholders,” Herring said of Novartis, adding, “We also believe that one of our missions is contributing new medicines to society, which is horrendously expensive. There is a limit to what we can do if we want to maintain profitability as a company. It cannot be a commercial organization’s responsibility to solve access to medicine problems where there is no market. We are trying to partner with PDPs [product development partnerships] and NGOs [nongovernmental organizations] to work together to try to solve this problem. We would go out of business if we tried to address this problem on our own.”
According to Herring, Novartis partners with PDPs such as the Global Alliance for TB Drug Development, Medicines for Malaria Venture, and the Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative. Novartis has also established “libraries where all of the compounds are in the public domain. They are available to all of our external partners, including universities and PDPs.” He added, “PDPs are a brilliant concept because [they] involve collaboration with charities, NGOs, donors like the Wellcome Trust and the [Bill & Melinda] Gates Foundation, and the pharmaceutical industry. Over the last eight to ten years, PDPs have generated a portfolio of more than a 100 potential drugs, which is outstanding.” See the link below for more information.
