PHA-Exch> Health Affairs: GlaxoSmithKline CEO Calls For Measures To Fight Neglected Diseases

[Claudio Schuftan]

From: Ford, Kathleen KFord at projecthope.org


GlaxoSmithKline CEO Calls For Measures To Fight Neglected Diseases

By pooling some of their as yet untapped intellectual property, drugmakers
could accelerate progress in developing treatments for the "neglected
diseases" that plague about a billion people in the world's least developed
countries (LDCs), GlaxoSmithKline CEO Andrew Witty says in an interview with
Health Affairs Editor-in-Chief Susan Dentzer.

The idea of such a "patent pool" is one of several ideas Witty has advanced
to bolster public health efforts in poorer nations. In his interview with
Dentzer, Witty discusses these ideas, which include opening up the company's
global research facility in Tres Cantos, Spain, to researchers from
competing drugmakers and other organizations. In addition, the
GlaxoSmithKline units operating in LDCs will be allowed to reinvest 20
percent of their annual profits into the public health infrastructures in
those nations, Witty tells Dentzer.

You can read Dentzer's interview with Witty at
http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/abstract/hlthaff.28.3.w411

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