It will also make its in-house library of 13,500 validated malaria compounds freely available, set up new collaborations in which it will share intellectual property, and create a sustainable pricing model for world’s most advanced malaria candidate vaccine, said Andrew Witty, Chief Executive.
His announcements build on commitments made in 2009 to expand access to medicines and encourage new research into neglected tropical diseases that have a disproportionate impact on poorer countries.
“Since I took over at GSK I have been focused on changing the business model for the company to improve performance. But equally important is the imperative to earn the trust of society, not just by meeting expectations, but by exceeding them,” Witty said.
According to Witty, the measures are characterised by a determination to be more flexible, open and willing to learn. “We are working with world-class partners to find new business models to expand access to medicines. [...] GSK has the capability to make a difference, and a genuine appetite to change the landscape of healthcare for the world’s poorest people,” Witty said.
Timothy Wells, Chief Scientific Officer of the Medicines for Malaria Venture, (MMV) which has worked with GSK in screening the malaria compounds, said the company’s new initiatives have the potential to alter the way the world approaches research and development for neglected diseases. “By sharing the data from the MMV-GSK screening collaboration, the research community can start to build up a public repository of knowledge that should be as powerful as the human genome databases.”
‘Open Lab’, based at GSK’s research centre at the Tres Cantos Campus, Spain, will act as an engine room of scientific innovation for neglected tropical diseases. GSK has created capacity for up to 60 scientists from around the world to have access to the lab. They will be encouraged to tap into the expertise, knowledge and infrastructure of the company, while pursuing their own projects as part of an integrated drug discovery team.
GSK will establish a not-for-profit foundation with an initial seed investment of $8m to help fund the research and fuel the sharing of knowledge and ideas.
The 13,500 malaria compounds result from a screen of GSK’s pharmaceutical compound library of more than 2 million molecules for any that inhibit the malaria parasite P.falciparum. This is the deadliest form of malaria, which is found primarily in sub-Saharan Africa.
This exercise took five scientists a year to complete. GSK will make these findings, including the chemical structures and associated assay data, freely available to the public via scientific websites.
GSK also said governance of the related knowledge base will be taken over by an independent third party, BIO Ventures for Global Health (BVGH). GSK and BVGH have signed an agreement with the Emory Institute for Drug Discovery to add further chemical libraries and other assets in the search for new anti-malarial drugs.
A second collaboration has been established with South Africa firm iThemba Pharmaceuticals to discover and develop new treatments for tuberculosis.
GSK also said that if RTS,S, its anti-malaria vaccine currently in pivotal Phase III trials across seven African countries, is approved, it will be priced to cover the cost of the vaccine plus a small profit. This profit will be fully reinvested into research and development for second-generation malaria vaccines, or vaccines for other neglected tropical diseases.
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