IF YOU want to do something well, do it yourself. Newly industrialised countries of the 鈥渟outh鈥� are developing cheap treatments for neglected tropical diseases, filling the void left by western drug firms, which focus on diseases of the rich.
The world鈥檚 poorest people suffer from tropical diseases such as rabies, hookworm and . Yet few treatments have been developed by big pharma: of 1556 drugs approved between 1975 and 2004, only 21 were for such diseases.
Now the first inventory of drugs developed by small southern companies to tackle diseases of the poor reveals a further 62 treatments for tropical diseases, with 28 already on sale, including a cholera vaccine.
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Many are only sold locally, and so could be exported, says of the McLaughlin-Rotman Centre for Global Health in Toronto, Canada, and co-author of the inventory in Health Affairs (). 鈥淚t鈥檚 a new vein of gold that hasn鈥檛 been fully mined.鈥�
Singer admits that donated drugs from western companies may have helped tackle some neglected diseases, but only on an ad hoc basis. In contrast, southern companies are developing tailored and affordable products. To illustrate potential savings, Singer cites a hepatitis B vaccine developed in India, which though not strictly for a tropical disease, costs just 28 cents per shot compared with $25 in the west.
