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The R&D hurdles for neglected diseases: modern medicines have dramatically improved the health of millions of people worldwide, but the healthcare situation in industrialized countries is a stark contrast to that in the least developed countries where neglected diseases are still prevalent.

Article Excerpt
Thanks to medical interventions, conditions that would have been considered life-threatening 100 years ago can now be prevented, cured or controlled. Despite this progress, however, a number of diseases persist in exerting a heavy healthcare burden on marginalized communities in poor countries, even though they have largely been eradicated elsewhere across the globe.

The perception that these diseases are low on the list of global healthcare priorities, as well as the fragmented approach to researching treatments, has resulted in them being grouped under the umbrella term 'neglected diseases'. Although a universally accepted list does not exist, the World Health Organization (WHO) considers neglected diseases to be primarily infectious diseases that thrive in the heat and humidity of tropical climates. According to the WHO, considering these diseases as a group is important for control programmes, because many people are afflicted simultaneously by more than one of them. (1)

Since 1975, pharmaceutical companies have been responsible for the launch of over 1400 new chemical entities as human therapeutics, (2) but relatively few of these have targeted neglected diseases. Subsequently, there has been considerable media and public pressure on the pharmaceutical industry to focus more attention on this area of drug development, as well as on governments to provide incentives for investment in neglected diseases.

The challenges faced by pharma

Efforts to develop specific R&D programmes for neglected diseases have steadily...

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