The world's second biggest pharmaceutical company is to radically shift its attitude to providing cheap drugs to millions of people in the developing world.
In a major change of strategy, the new head of GlaxoSmithKline, Andrew Witty, has told the Guardian he will slash prices on all medicines in the poorest countries, give back profits to be spent on hospitals and clinics and – most ground-breaking of all – share knowledge about potential drugs that are currently protected by patents. ...
He said that GSK will: ...
Put any chemicals or processes over which it has intellectual property rights that are relevant to finding drugs for neglected diseases into a "patent pool", so they can be explored by other researchers. ...
The extent of the changes Witty is setting in train is likely to stun drug company critics and other pharmaceutical companies ...
Comment. The changes are stunning. It's a remarkable about-face from an industry that has been perhaps the most outspoken advocate of the sanctity of patents. In the news so far, there's no word of any information that will become OA (in our sense) that wasn't previously, but it may be an indicator of a willingness to experiment with sharing, even in fields that were previously most resistant.
... Transparency is a major issue. Witty has pledged to publish all clinical trial data, whether positive or negative - and be open about GSK's payments to doctors. ...
Posted by
Gavin Baker at 2/14/2009 12:58:00 PM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
