MULTINATIONAL drugs companies have a 鈥渕oral responsibility鈥� to join the fight against 鈥渦nfashionable鈥� tropical diseases that kill millions of people in developing countries, says an adviser to the WHO. John Ryley, a retired drugs researcher from ICI who now advises the WHO鈥檚 international programme on tropical diseases, called on pharmaceuticals companies to offer the WHO samples of drugs being developed for 鈥淲estern鈥� diseases so that they can be screened for activity against tropical diseases as well.
Ryley, speaking in Bath this week at the annual meeting of the Society for General Microbiology, accepted that it is generally uneconomic for companies to develop drugs specifically for tropical diseases. But many drugs designed to combat cancer or viral and fungal diseases are potentially useful weapons against tropical diseases, he said. 鈥淧harmaceutical companies can鈥檛 do the work themselves, and we can鈥檛 do it ourselves,鈥� said Ryley. 鈥淏ut between us, I think we can do something.鈥�
Through informal contacts with some drugs companies, he and his colleagues have received some promising samples. One antifungal agent being developed at Zeneca shows great potential in fighting Chagas鈥� disease, which afflicts between 16 and 18 million people in South America. There is no effective treatment.
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