Major and neglected diseases in developing countries (Sharon Bowles MEP)

Sharon Bowles MEP <info@sharonbowles.org.uk>

Major and neglected diseases in developing countries

July 5, 2005 12:00 AM
By Sharon Bowles MEP in European Parliament

In recent years waiving or reducing royalties on drugs for poor countries has been championed by the EU and I urge us not to be fainthearted in pressing for more concessions, whatever the complexity of the arguments, many of which I do not fully believe, and I say that as a European patent attorney, as well as a politician.

Only yesterday we voted measures to compensate for the cost of research for paediatric medicine. Clearly, when market forces of themselves will not provide cost-effective research for drugs for our own children, it is not surprising that there are even fewer resources available for developing and poor countries. For malaria and TB, which are already increasing in developed countries, there are several partnership research projects under way which include a pledge to make the eventual drugs affordable for developing countries. One such project is being led by Oxford University. It aims to produce a malaria vaccine and is being run in conjunction with an Oxford biotech company and a German pharmaceutical company. A TB vaccine is being similarly investigated elsewhere by others.

As well as being preventative, vaccines are usually one-off treatments, something which is an additional benefit in environments and countries where drug storage and dosage regimes are hard to follow or supply routes are insecure. But we have to recognise that, especially for lesser-known diseases, public funding will be essential and I believe that the EU should include this in its programmes.

I can support this report, as will many, simply from my heart and sense of humanity, but there are reasons to support it with your pockets, for with many of these diseases delay in action will come back to bite in other ways later.