WHO asked to boost R&D for neglected diseases

GENEVA (Reuters) - More than 200 medical scientists urged the World Health Organisation's (WHO) executive on Wednesday to back a call to boost research into drugs for neglected diseases that kill mainly the world's poor.

A resolution calling for action to step up "needs-driven" research and switch some emphasis away from research for profit has been put by Brazil and Kenya to the WHO's executive board, which is meeting this week. It aims to push development of safe and affordable drugs for AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis as well as tropical diseases and illnesses like sleeping sickness, where current remedies are often expensive and can have dangerous side-effects.

"As scientists, many of whom work in fields connected with biomedicine, we are writing to express our support for the resolution," they said in a letter to the WHO.

"At a time of huge progress in basic research...and more money (for) research and development, we are deeply concerned about the ability...to translate this into a global improvement in public health," said the scientists, who included Sir John Sulston, the 2002 Nobel medicine laureate.

According to Medecins sans Frontieres, the relief agency that has long campaigned for a change in priorities, 90 percent of the $105.9 billion spent annually on medical research goes to diseases affecting just 10 percent of the population.

Of 1,556 new products marketed globally between 1975 and 2004, only 20 -- just 1.3 percent -- were for tropical diseases and tuberculosis, it says.

Backing the scientists' call, Ellen 't Hoen, director of MSF's policy advocacy and research division, told journalists the resolution could, if adopted, help shift research priorities, give a bigger role to the WHO in setting them, and address a lack of money for the so-called neglected diseases.

The resolution, which the 33-country board will discuss on Wednesday or Thursday, urges the WHO to set up a group of interested states to work on proposals for a "global framework" to support needs-driven research and report back within 3 years.

It also urges the WHO's 192 member states individually to increase research on poor country diseases and get more involved in the work.

"We are not talking about something that will totally change the system of research and development...but which will re-orientate part...into priorities," said Bernard Pecoul, head of the MSF-backed Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative.