Abstract

Innovating In Drug Discovery And Development For Neglected Diseases

Robert Don, Senior Project Manager, Drugs for Neglected Diseases

Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative is a Geneva based product development partnership founded by Mèdecins Sans Frontières together with several other partners to develop new drugs and advocate for sustainable drug research for Neglected Tropical Diseases. These are diseases which affect the poorest of the poor who have no voice and provide little economic viability as a drug market for the pharmaceutical industry. Product development partnerships (PDPs) such as DNDi are a recent innovation with the goals of developing modern drugs, providing access to patients and exploring new mechanisms for sustainable research and development in this area. As the name suggests PDPs build innovative partnerships with both public and private research initiatives. These can be public-public, public-private and private-private. This presentation will focus on examples of all three types of collaboration conducted by DNDi including multilateral agreements with pharmaceutical companies to reduce time, cost and attrition in early drug discovery and open source research in the public research arena with the aim of harnessing undergraduate and postgraduate teaching and research chemistry for these neglected populations.