Big News for the Little Guys?
I'm not quite sure I understand how GlaxoSmithKline came to this decision. It does seem commendable, but I'm not quite sure about that, either.
GSK has in their R&D vaults some 13,500 compounds which have some kind of effect on the parasite the causes malaria. Basically what that means is they've used high-throughput biochemistry and developed an assay to test hundreds of thousands of compounds for their ability to cause some kind of change in the parasite. The rub is, in those circumstances, it's not even clear what each compound is. That's what all the R&D that comes afterward is for. There are many open questions that need to be addressed before a drug can be put out. What exactly is the compound? what does it do physiologically? What will it do to humans? etc. etc.
Well now GSK is releasing the list of those 13,500 compounds publicly, which sounds like a payload for academic (and public) scientists and is basically unheard of for profit-driven private companies, giant pharma included. It is amazing to have access to that information, but I wonder what is the real value of it. It's the first step in a long process to develop drugs. Academia is certainly not know for drug development, that fits squarely into GSKs hands, no? so what should academia do with all that information? And why would GSK give it out? In related news, they also announced guarantees to make drugs against malaria and HIV more affordable the world over.
GSK has in their R&D vaults some 13,500 compounds which have some kind of effect on the parasite the causes malaria. Basically what that means is they've used high-throughput biochemistry and developed an assay to test hundreds of thousands of compounds for their ability to cause some kind of change in the parasite. The rub is, in those circumstances, it's not even clear what each compound is. That's what all the R&D that comes afterward is for. There are many open questions that need to be addressed before a drug can be put out. What exactly is the compound? what does it do physiologically? What will it do to humans? etc. etc.
Well now GSK is releasing the list of those 13,500 compounds publicly, which sounds like a payload for academic (and public) scientists and is basically unheard of for profit-driven private companies, giant pharma included. It is amazing to have access to that information, but I wonder what is the real value of it. It's the first step in a long process to develop drugs. Academia is certainly not know for drug development, that fits squarely into GSKs hands, no? so what should academia do with all that information? And why would GSK give it out? In related news, they also announced guarantees to make drugs against malaria and HIV more affordable the world over.
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