Crowdsourcing to Tackle Neglected Tropical Diseases
The UK’s The Guardian newspaper has shone the spotlight on a number of open innovation initiatives that are bringing academic researchers, biotech and pharma companies and the general public together to tackle neglected tropical diseases.
For so long the only way of doing drug research and development was to do it yourself, but lack of funds is forcing companies to be creative and innovate their R&D processes.
Finding a solution independently does mean that a company gets all the glory and potentially all the profits when they develop an appropriate therapeutic, but drug development is a risky business entailing high costs, and most projects fail.
“The challenge is to create projects that are simple and allow a streamlined process for organisations to participate,” Joseph told IRIN – Integrated Regional Information Networks. “[Open innovation partnerships could] significantly reduce trial and error, and lead neglected disease researchers to that ‘Eureka moment’ more quickly and effectively.”
Initiatives that the newspaper cites include:
The Re: Search project – provides access to intellectual property for pharmaceutical compounds, technologies, and know-how and data available for research and development for neglected tropical diseases.
The Nokia Sensing Challenge – electronics company Nokia and the X Prize Foundation have launched a competition to offer $2.25m to encourage novel use of digital tools, particularly mobile health applications. The aim is to stimulate the development of the next generation of sensing technologies and health sensors that will bring about dramatic improvements to the quality and accuracy of monitoring an individual’s health.
To read the full article from The Guardian click here.
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