Company Analysis - Institute for OneWorld health
From pipedream to pipeline
OneWorld Health may only be one small company in an extremely large and financially-motivated industry, but its story is sending ripples throughout the business...Since the Beyond Philanthropy report of 2002, movement has definitely been made by the pharmaceutical industry, even if some proposals are put forward a little gingerly. Celera has proved that companies are willing to give more than money to aid the situation, and CombinatoRx has spoken of wavering the attraction of patenting a drug so that it may reach the patients quicker; important principles that will hopefully be followed.
Helena Vines Fiestas of Oxfam UK comments that "since Beyond Philanthropy, the pharmaceutical industry has improved its performance in terms of facilitating access to medicines, if only to manage its reputational risks. Yet, progress is far from sufficient. Furthermore performance varies significantly among companies: a key obstacle is a corporate culture which inhibits innovation and transparency.
"Initiatives such as OneWorld Health, based on bringing to market anti-infective drugs originally abandoned as unprofitable, highlights one of the major market failures of the current drug development model. There is an urgent need to realign financial and public health needs in drug development."
It must also be accepted that the pharmaceutical companies cannot solve this problem alone. With many of the developing countries' governments unable and perhaps unwilling to share their wealth fairly amongst their citizens, it is understandable that such countries will need to fix their own internal problems before their before a significant difference to their citizens health can be made.
OneWorld Health may only be one small company in an extremely large and financially-motivated industry, but its story is sending ripples throughout the business. Paromomycin IM has not only allowed OneWorld Health to prove non-profit drug development does work, but has done it in a language that all pharmaceutical companies can understand: regulatory approval. With this, an important barrier has been removed, and the concept has been shunted from pipedream to pipeline.
Samantha Richards
Pharmaprojects Analyst
Image courtesy of Rajendera Shaw and Oxfam.
