Expert: As A UN Agency, WIPO Has Role To Play On Neglected Diseases

According to a prominent researcher in the field of neglected tropical diseases, the World Intellectual Property Organization has a prominent role to play in addressing the lack of research and development for neglected diseases.

The researcher spoke at a seminar organised by WIPO Re:Search, an initiative between WIPO and the private sector to facilitate the sharing by organisations of their intellectual property, compounds, expertise, facilities and know-how royalty-free with qualified researchers worldwide working on new solutions for neglected tropical diseases, malaria and tuberculosis, according to its website.

The seminar featured keynote speaker Peter Hotez, president of the Sabin Vaccine Institute, a non-profit organisation working to educate, eliminate barriers and lead scientific discovery on vaccine-preventable and neglected tropical diseases. It also featured Remko van Leeuwen, current project director of the HOOKVAC Consortium at the Amsterdam Institute for Global Health and Development (AIGHD), through which groups from Africa, Latin America, and Europe are working together to develop a vaccine for hookworm and other intestinal worm diseases, according to WIPO.

WIPO Offers Possible New Hope

Hotez said despite the strength of different United Nations agencies, the needed level of research and development (R&D) for neglected diseases has not been reached. The World Health Organization has a limited budget despite its amount of technical expertise, he said. There could be a new role for WIPO, one of the few UN agencies actually generating revenues. WIPO should not do it alone, he explained, but would need to tap into the WHO expertise.

Anatole Krattiger, director of the WIPO Global Challenges Division, said the mission of WIPO is to promulgate the IP system for particular objectives: the social economic and cultural development of all the countries.

Looking more broadly at the IP system, he said, “We had a trilateral symposium yesterday (World Health Organization, World Trade Organization, WIPO) and the whole discussion revolved around IP both as a challenge and as an opportunity,” he said.

“We at WIPO have a particular comparative advantage to leverage precisely the pharmaceutical industry whose trust we have implicitly, and I think explicitly,” said Krattiger. “We are positioned very well to leverage their IP assets in the broad sense.”

The IP system works very well where there are markets, but the IP system was not established to address those non-market needs, said Krattiger.

Neglected Diseases Link to NCDs

In his keynote speech, Hotez remarked that non-communicable diseases (NCDs) are ascending and the next decade will be the “decade of NCDs.” NCDs are often characterised as the result of changing lifestyle, bad eating habits, tobacco and alcohol, he said. However, part of the cause of NCDs is attributable to neglected diseases, he said.

Chronic conditions often mimic NCDs, he said, blurring the lines. He illustrated this with schistosoma haematobium infection in sub-Saharan Africa, which leads to renal failure.

Ebola, as dire as was the epidemic, represented only a fraction of deaths attributed to ongoing neglected diseases in Africa, he said, with little interest in the world.

Poor Living Among the Wealthy

According to Hotez, the G20 countries now account for most of the world’s neglected diseases, with 78 percent of leprosy cases, 62 percent of Chagas disease, 57 percent of tuberculosis and 45 percent of malaria.

He cited Brazil, Australia, Mexico, China, Indonesia, and some Eastern European countries. He also said that 12 million Americans are suffering from neglected tropical diseases, such as 7 million with trichomoniasis and 1 million with Chagas disease, particularly in the southern US.

NCDs are rising in the poor populations of wealthy countries, he said.

Hotez remarked on the low level of contribution from countries to research and development for neglected diseases, citing for example the United States as spending 0.008 percent of its GDP, India 0.003 percent, Canada 0.001 percent, the European Union 0.001 percent, and China less than 0.001 percent. He underlined the efforts of some countries, such as Japan’s Global Health Innovation Technology Fund (GHIT).

There is an opportunity for WIPO to have a discussion on the issue, he said, calling on countries such as Brazil, Canada, Australia, and China to step up.

We cannot rely on the pharmaceutical industry alone, he said; other actors are needed. For Ebola, “it would have been nice to have a vaccine” before the epidemic, he said. The first publication for a vaccine dates back to 2003, but it “sat there” because the business model is broken.

Conflict-stricken countries make an easy target for neglected diseases, he said, such as the three Ebol- affected countries in Africa. Countries devastated by conflict have lost indispensable health infrastructure.

According to Hotez, ISIS-occupied Syria, Iraq, Libya and Yemen are in danger of becoming the targets of a number of diseases. For example, he cited the re-emergence of measles and polio. Yet, he pointed out, “the world is silent.”

Southern Europe is affected by tropical diseases such as malaria, dengue, and chikungunya, he said. Who is going to make vaccines for those diseases? he asked.

Van Leeuwen said the global funding of product development partnerships (PDPs) is declining, mostly driven by diminished funding in this area by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

He also underlined the fact that private funding only accounts for 12 percent, while 66 percent comes from the public sector. “12 percent is simply not acceptable,” he said.

He gave an example of the European Fund for Strategic Investment (EFSI) as a model to be followed by governments. According to the EFSI website, “EFSI aims to overcome the current investment gap in the European Union (EU) by mobilising private financing for strategic investments which the market cannot finance alone.”

“It will support strategic investments in infrastructure as well as risk finance for small businesses,” the website says. The EFSI hands out public funding to attract private funding, Van Leeuwen said.

Hotez said there is a need to “think outside the box,” and reflect on what WIPO could do to help the treatment gap. “Forget the term WIPO,” he said, just consider how to bring a UN agency to stimulate innovation where it is not happening. This is not a criticism of other UN agencies, but there is a crisis of products not being developed, he said.

The PDP support from the Gates Foundation is declining and more so for vaccines, he said. “We love the Gates Foundation,” but they are sending a message that “we cannot rely on them as a major donor” in the future, he said.

He said he sees a public health catastrophe brewing in the Mediterranean region and in the Middle East and there is a need to reflect on what a UN agency can do to fix that problem.

 

Image Credits: Peter Hotez