GlaxoSmithKline

Gates initiative on “neglected diseases” advances cause, but neglects key questions

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation today announced, together with more than a dozen drug makers and others, a new initiative aimed at fighting a select group of mostly developing world ailments called “neglected tropical diseases” such as river blindness, parasitic elephantiasis and others.

Uniting to Combat NTDs

These diseases affect an estimated 1.4 billion people, killing perhaps half a million a year, but have not been high on the global health radar screen. As Dr. Peter Hotez writes for Huffington Post, for only 50 cents per child many of these diseases may now be eliminated.

The new public-private initiative aims to rid the world of 10 of these diseases by 2020.

It’s widely regarded as a positive step forward for global health, but there are some important questions that went unanswered:

What is a neglected disease? This is actually a hotly debated question in global health circles right now.
Many think the solution to fighting diseases of poverty should be to focus on poverty as much as on disease. Will this initiative get at the root problem or just address symptoms?

We’ll get back to the neglected issues of neglected diseases in a bit. First, more on the news:

For this initiative called the London Declaration on Neglected Diseases, the Gates Foundation pledged $363 million to support research into new treatments. Drug makers like GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, Johnson & Johnson and others have likewise pledged to step up research as well as to expand donation programs of medications to poor countries.

Others involved in the initiative include the World Bank, the United Arab Emirates as well as the U.S. and U.K. governments The total estimated commitment is $785 million. Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Health, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, elephantiasis, GlaxoSmithKline, guinea worm, Jimmy Carter, leischmaniasis, Medicins Sans Frontieres, Merck, neglected disease, Schistosomiasis

October 28, 2011 | 12:08 PM | By Tom Paulson

Experts question Gates-Glaxo malaria vaccine report

Flickr, Aya Rosen

Many of the world’s leading vaccine experts and the prestigious British journal Nature are raising questions about the potential efficacy of an experimental malaria vaccine — and the way it is being promoted by scientists supported by the Gates Foundation.

As Nature News’ Declan Butler reports in Malaria vaccine results raise scrutiny:

To judge from last week’s headlines, scientists had made a big breakthrough in the long campaign to create a malaria vaccine ….

Yet several leading vaccine researchers, who are critical of the unusual decision to publish partial trial data, argue that the results raise questions about whether the RTS,S candidate vaccine can actually win approval.

Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Health, Science, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, GlaxoSmithKline, malaria, PATH, vaccine

October 25, 2011 | 12:03 PM | By Tom Paulson

Three reasons not to get too excited about the Gates-Glaxo malaria vaccine

Last week, the biggest news out of the Gates Foundation’s Malaria Forum were some interim results of an ongoing test of an experimental malaria vaccine.

Many, if not most, media reported the findings in somewhat hyperbolic fashion as a “major milestone,” a “breakthrough” or “world’s first malaria vaccine.”

Google News on the malaria vaccine

Despite the hype and fanfare, many experts at the Seattle meeting said this experimental vaccine (known as RTS,S) actually so far represents only incremental progress — a scientific achievement which may still turn out to have little practical utility in the real world. They usually only said so privately, given that the Gates Foundation preferred to hear “optimistic” assessments rather than cranky ones.

1. No breakthrough. Let’s first put to bed the claims that these findings represent a major milestone. In fact, the findings largely repeat earlier ‘interim’ results that have continued to find the vaccine protects only half of those immunized — and appears to wane fairly rapidly over time.

So that’s the first reason — a point also made in this (terribly titled) Huffington Post article A vaccine that works only half the time is not the shot in the arm malaria needs. The author, Tido von Schoen-Angerer, director of Médecins Sans Frontières‘ essential medicines campaign says:

But while the latest advance toward the development is scientifically important, there are several reasons to be cautious about the difference this vaccine could make, on the basis of current results.

2. The cost question. The second reason this halfway effective malaria vaccine may not work is cost. The manufacturer GlaxoSmithKline has refused to say what it thinks it will have to charge for the vaccine, other than to say it would be “at cost” plus 5 percent. Neither the PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative, which is working with GSK on the malaria vaccine trial, or the Gates Foundation (which funds the PATH initiative) will say what price they think is feasible. Many say anything over a dollar might be too much for poor countries.

3. The science. It is promising that researchers have shown a vaccine against malaria is possible. But there’s a lot of other research out there indicating why it may be quite difficult to get a malaria vaccine that can perform as well as most of us expect a vaccine to perform — providing ideally something like 90 percent protection but hopefully not lower than 70 percent. Continue reading →