TDR collaboration with the pharmaceutical industry

Partnerships for better neglected disease drug discovery and development: how have we fared?

Introduction: In the field of neglected disease, mushrooming partnerships have changed the landscape in the last decades. With high diversity in participants, type, scope, and operational models, partnership becomes the ultimate choice for drug discovery and development. This paper aims to reflect on this phenomenon based on experiences and lessons learned, providing insights for the future.Areas covered: Lack of safe and effective drugs for neglected diseases stems from market and public policy failure. Combining resources, skills, and expertise justifies working collaboratively in the R&D quest. The advancement of public-private partnerships (PPP), including product development partnership (PDP) for neglected diseases, is described, herein, including the rationale behind their conception, evolution, expansion, and alternative approaches. The author also discusses the appeals and the pitfalls of partnership in this field.Expert opinion: The progressive partnerships in drug discovery and development for neglected diseases need to be encouraged, especially in alignment with an open science culture. Experiences in partnerships vary with bias for successful ones, rendering more rigorous evaluation and research necessary. Eventually, the focus of improving partnership should not only be on addressing discovery bottlenecks, but also safeguarding access and delivery. Expanding focus to include vaccines and diagnostics is necessary.

Public-private partnership (PPP) development: Toward building a PPP framework for healthy eating

Public-private partnerships (PPPs) in public health have gained great attention in the global health literature over the last two decades. Evidence suggests that PPPs could contribute to mitigating complex health problems. There is, however, limited knowledge about the process and specific conditions in which PPPs for healthy eating, in particular, can be developed successfully. To address this gap, this article first summarizes the literature, and second, using qualitative content analysis, identifies factors deemed to influence the process of building PPPs for healthy eating. The literature search was undertaken in two stages. The first stage focused on PPPs in public health to understand what constitutes a PPP, and the types and characteristics of PPPs. The second stage sought empirical examples and conceptual papers related to PPPs for healthy eating to identify critical elements that could facilitate or hinder partnerships between the government and the food industry. The search yielded 38 articles on PPPs in public health and 20 on PPPs for healthy eating. The analysis generated 23 individual elements that have the potential to influence a successful process of building PPPs for healthy eating (eg, endorsement from an individual champion, equal representation from partner organizations on board committees). The analysis also yielded five factors that appeared to well-represent the 23 individual elements of PPP formation: motivation, enablers, governance, benefits, and barriers. These results constitute an important step to understand critical factors involved in the formation of PPPs in public health and should inform additional empirical research to validate them.

Why miltefosine-a life-saving drug for leishmaniasis-is unavailable to people who need it the most

Miltefosine, the only oral drug approved for the treatment of leishmaniasis-a parasitic disease transmitted by sandflies-is considered as a success story of research and development (R&D) by a public-private partnership (PPP). It epitomises the multiple market failures faced by a neglected disease drug: patients with low ability to pay, neglect by authorities and uncertain market size. Originally developed as an anticancer agent in the 1990s, the drug was registered in India in 2002 to treat the fatal visceral leishmaniasis. At the time, miltefosine was considered a breakthrough in the treatment, making it feasible to eliminate a regional disease. Today, access to miltefosine remains far from secure. The initial PPP agreement which includes access to the public sector is not enforced. The reality on the ground has been challenging: shortages due to inefficient supply chains, and use of a substandard product which led to a high number of treatment failures and deaths. Miltefosine received orphan drug status in the USA; when it was registered there in 2014, a priority review voucher (PRV) was awarded. The PRV, meant to facilitate drug development for neglected disease, was subsequently sold to another company for US$125 million without, to date, any apparent impact on drug access. At the heart of these concerns are questions on how to protect societal benefit of a drug developed with public investment, while clinicians worldwide struggle with its lack of affordability, limited availability and sustainability of access. This article analyses the reasons behind the postregistration access failure of miltefosine and provides the lessons learnt.

Integrated dataset of screening hits against multiple neglected disease pathogens

New chemical entities are desperately needed that overcome the limitations of existing drugs for neglected diseases. Screening a diverse library of 10,000 drug-like compounds against 7 neglected disease pathogens resulted in an integrated dataset of 744 hits. We discuss the prioritization of these hits for each pathogen and the strong correlation observed between compounds active against more than two pathogens and mammalian cell toxicity. Our work suggests that the efficiency of early drug discovery for neglected diseases can be enhanced through a collaborative, multi-pathogen approach.

Advancing drug innovation for neglected diseases-criteria for lead progression

The current drug R&D pipeline for most neglected diseases remains weak, and unlikely to support registration of novel drug classes that meet desired target product profiles in the short term. This calls for sustained investment as well as greater emphasis in the risky upstream drug discovery. Access to technologies, resources, and strong management as well as clear compound progression criteria are factors in the successful implementation of any collaborative drug discovery effort. We discuss how some of these factors have impacted drug discovery for tropical diseases within the past four decades, and highlight new opportunities and challenges through the virtual North–South drug discovery network as well as the rationale for greater participation of institutions in developing countries in product innovation. A set of criteria designed to facilitate compound progression from screening hits to drug candidate selection is presented to guide ongoing efforts.

Paromomycin

Paromomycin is an aminoglycoside that is active against Gram-negative and many Gram-positive bacteria as well as some protozoa and cestodes. It is out of use as an antibiotic but was licensed in 2007 in India as an effective, well tolerated and affordable treatment for visceral leishmaniasis (VL) at a dose of 11 mg/kg (base) for 21 days. Currently, the non-profit group Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative is conducting studies on paromomycin (as monotherapy and in combination) in VL in Africa, and the Institute for OneWorld Health is conducting a Phase IV study in India. Paromomycin in combination with sodium stibogluconate has proven to be effective in African and Indian VL and improves survival in African VL. To prevent the emergence of drug-resistant leishmaniasis in areas of anthroponotic transmission (India and Africa), paromomycin should be used as part of combination therapy for VL. Further trials testing different combinations are much needed. In addition, the distribution of paromomycin (like other drugs for leishmaniasis) should be well regulated and preferably restricted to the public sector. These strategies should ensure the longevity of paromomycin as a useful drug for VL.

Innovative lead discovery strategies for tropical diseases

Lead discovery is currently a key bottleneck in the pipeline for much-needed novel drugs for tropical diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis, African sleeping sickness, leishmaniasis and Chagas disease. Here, we discuss the different approaches to lead discovery for tropical diseases and emphasize a coordination strategy that involves highly integrated partnerships and networks between scientists in academic institutions and industry in both wealthy industrialized countries and disease-endemic countries. This strategy offers the promise of reducing the inherently high attrition rate of the early stages of discovery research, thereby increasing the chances of success and enhancing cost-effectiveness.