GSK partners with Brazil’s Fiocruz on tropical disease research
pharmafile | November 15, 2010 | News story | Research and Development | Chagas disease, Fiocruz, GSK, GSK’s Tres Cantos Medicines Development Campus, GlaxoSmithKline, Oswald Cruz Foundation, leishmaniasis
GlaxoSmithKline and the Brazil-based Oswald Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz) are to research and develop new medicines for tropical diseases Chagas and leishmaniasis.
The work will use GSK’s R&D hub in Tres Cantos Campus, Spain, where the manufacturer in January set up its ‘Open Lab’ concept.
Its idea is to allow information exchange between scientists worldwide looking for treatments for diseases of the developing world.
“The expertise and knowledge that the scientists at Fiocruz will bring will help drive our discovery and development efforts,” says Nick Cammack, head of GSK’s Tres Cantos Medicines Development Campus.
“Alliances like this one with Fiocruz are critical to the progress and to the needs of patients,” he added.
Fiocruz’s expertise in Chagas and leishmaniasis – as well as the burden of unmet medical need in these diseases – makes them obvious first targets.
But treatments for malaria and tuberculosis will also be urgently sought, GSK and Fiocruz say, as they seek to treat diseases which disproportionately affect people living in the world’s poorest countries.
The two parties already have an agreement, dating back to 1985, involving the manufacture of vaccines for public health priorities in Brazil and involving similar technology transfer and scientific collaboration.
“Fiocruz will expand the partnership with GSK aiming to research and develop new drugs for neglected diseases,” says Carlos Gadelha, Fiocruz vice-president of production and innovation.
“Thus, we will gather the recognised expertise of both institutions in an area of great impact to public health,” he adds.
The existing agreement covers diseases including polio, Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib), measles, mumps, rubella, rotavirus and most recently pneumococcal disease.
GSK has been active in diseases of the developing world: in April this year GSK Biologicals and Dutch vaccines company Crucell joined forces to develop a ‘second generation’ malaria vaccine candidate.
Adam Hill
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