BERLIN, Jun 6 (IPS) - There is little money in
developing treatment for diseases peculiar to developing countries,
leading researchers say.
And there is no more poignant illustration of this
than the development of antiretrovirals used in treatment of HIV/AIDS,
says Tido von Schön-Angerer of the international aid organisation
Doctors Without Borders.
Antiretrovirals can slow down the progress of AIDS,
even if they cannot cure it. They normally consist of a combination
of several active agents produced by different companies.
Combining different medicines in one pill and producing
this as a generic drug has simplified treatment and cut costs, but
this treatment is still not available to all who need it.
''We are slowly seeing a progress in the access
to treatment,'' UNAIDS head Peter Piot told a meeting here. But
lack of availability of treatment universally means AIDS is still
”a death sentence in the developing world.''
The drug Tenofovir produced by the company Gilead
is an example of such difficulties, says Schön-Angerer.
But Schön-Angerer says that while the medication
was offered at low cost, it was not possible to get it in most countries
because the company had to register the drug in each country. ''And
that is what they did not do,” he told IPS.
According to the latest UN report on HIV/AIDS,
only one in ten people who need antiretroviral treatment receive
it.
As the HIV virus changes, it becomes resistant
to given medication in two to three years. A patient must then change
to a second line of treatment. In the developed countries antiretroviral
medication is available in several lines.
It is necessary to combine active agents in the
second line in one pill, ''but we do not see any efforts from the
industry,'' said Schön-Angerer.
A second-line treatment costs about 2,000 dollars
a year per patient. ''At the moment only the first line therapy
is really affordable,'' said Schön-Angerer. With second-line
treatment people being treated for HIV could live five or six years
longer.
Schön-Angerer said the developing world is
not a market of interest to the pharmaceutical industry. ''The companies
do not get the same profits they are used to,'' he said, adding
that compared to other industries pharmaceutical companies have
very high profits.
Christian Wagner from the non-governmental organisation
BUKOpharma told IPS that 90 percent of all research and development
activities are focused on drugs for the western markets such as
anti-allergics, cancer therapies and drugs lowering cholesterol
levels. ''In the last 25 years around 1,400 new active agents were
developed, but only 13 were to treat tropical diseases that a majority
of the world's population is suffering from.''
When the anti-impotency
pill Viagra entered the market, other companies developed similar
products within three years, Wagner said. ''If there was the same
vigour in research on tropical diseases, we would be advancing in
huge steps.''
Developing a new medicine can cost up to 500 million
dollars, several companies claim. That enables companies to sell
them at high prices. But Wagner says other studies show that development
costs are far less.
He also pointed out that a lot of the research
funds come from taxpayers' money because basic research is conducted
by public institutions such as universities. Many costly clinical
studies are often financed by government institutes. ''We think
that if the research is publicly funded, the results should be publicly
available, too,'' said Wagner. (END/2005)
