30 October 2005
San Francisco-
"Deaths from malaria have doubled over the last 20 years," Gates said during a teleconference call. "It's a tragedy that the world has done so little to stop this disease that kills 2,000 African children every day," Gates said.
Forty percent, or $107.6 million, of the new funding will go to support clinical trials of a prototype vaccine aimed at protecting children against severe malaria, which is under development at GlaxoSmithKline's
In the teleconference call with Gates, Glaxo's chief executive,
Even so, the malaria research could have some positive upside for Glaxo's commercial products, particularly for future versions of "pandemic" vaccines--drugs that could be used to protect people against new and virulent influenzas, such as the avian flu. Here's why: Key to the success of a malaria vaccine is a so-called "adjuvant," a formulation that primes the immune system to respond to a vaccine. Glaxo researchers are hopeful that the work they are doing on malaria adjuvants will pay off as they develop vaccines for future pandemic illnesses.
Taking on a challenge as scientifically and emotionally appealing as creating a malaria vaccine is also a great recruiting tool, Garnier says. "I have top-notch scientists coming to work for Glaxo who won't work for other big pharma companies," Garnier asserts, because they want to work on problems like malaria. Glaxo's competitors include companies such as
Having someone else foot the bill doesn't hurt, either. In recent years, large pharma companies have sharply curtailed many research programs that once explored pharmaceuticals for treating diseases that largely afflict impoverished people. For instance, only 13 out of 1,223 new medicines marketed by major drug companies between 1975 and 1997 could be used for tropical diseases, according to Doctors Without Borders.
Malaria research has been particularly squeezed. Although work on a malaria vaccine had gone on for years at SmithKline Beecham (which became GlaxoSmithKline following a merger in 2000), corporate managers considered scuttling the program as recently as 1999 to cut costs. The program survived largely because its leading researcher pledged to find outside grants to supplement his budget--a move then unheard of in the pharmaceutical industry.
In 1999, the Gates Foundation awarded its first grant supporting malaria research. Prior to the grants announced today, the Gates Foundation had, since 1999, already put more than $250 million toward malaria research efforts. That makes them big spenders. According to a study slated to be released on Monday by a nonprofit group, the Malaria Research and Development Alliance, total research and development spending on malaria totaled $323 million in 2004. More than half of that money was given by just two groups-- the U.S. National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Even so, trying to create a vaccine against a parasite is a daunting task. Vaccines aim to provide the body with lasting immunity against a disease and so are seen as the most cost-effective way to safeguard against illness. Yet science has yet to produce a commercial vaccine against any parasite, living organisms that can adapt and change with startling agility.
Last year, a team of researchers in Mozambique and at GlaxoSmithKline published the results of a clinical study of a prototype malaria vaccine, involving 2,000 children. They found the vaccine (administered with its specially designed adjuvant) cut the risk of malaria by 30% for children overall and reduced the risk of the most fatal versions of malaria by 58%.
Ripley Ballou, Glaxo Vice President of Clinical R&D Early Development, says that the new money will support the development of more widespread clinical trials, which will take place over the next two to three years. Glaxo expects to try the vaccine formulation in approximately 17,000 young children in at least six countries throughout Africa.
If the trials go smoothly, a malaria vaccine could be ready for widespread use by 2011, says Melinda Moree, director of the PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative, a nonprofit created in 1999 by the Gates Foundation to accelerate such research and development efforts.
Other multinational companies are also getting involved in fighting malaria. For instance,
Garnier predicted that other pharmaceutical companies will follow Glaxo's lead in doing work on widespread diseases that afflict impoverished people. "Companies will come to this because you have people like Bill Gates around the table," Garner said. "Bill has reinvented philanthropy and made it a can-do enterprise."
http://www.forbes.com/sciencesandmedicine/2005/10/30/malaria-gates-philanthropy-cz_ec_1030malaria.html
--##--
