It’s an interesting conundrum. The industry whose primary charge is looking after people, keeping them alive and healthy, also has one of the most uncaring reputations. Big Pharma, we’re constantly told, is only concerned with making a profit.

So when generic versions of drugs designed to combat illnesses that strike primarily third-world countries (including anti-retroviral medicines for HIV/AIDS, and malarial drugs) are shut down in the courts, it comes as no surprise.
 
But this year, an unlikely champion of the poor – those most in need of modern medicine – rose up and made a stand. Andrew Witty, the British CEO of GlaxoSmithKlein (GSK), the world’s second-biggest pharmaceutical company, threw down a gauntlet to his rivals in the industry by announcing that he would put potentially thousands of anti-malarial drugs into the public domain.

During a speech delivered to the Council on Foreign Relations, Witty took the brave and unprecedented step of announcing an ‘open innovation’ strategy to help deliver new and better medicines for people living in the world’s poorest countries. As part of the ‘Open Lab’ initiative that Witty had announced a year ago – theoretically a pool of pharmaceutical data that researchers in universities and institutes have access to – Witty said that 13,500 compounds, painstakingly identified over two years from a pool of over two million that could inhibit the parasite that spreads malaria, would be made available free to the public.

“We believe that we are the first company to make such comprehensive data available,” he told the Council. “Taken together – making the compounds available, granting access to our patents and know-how and creating the “Open Lab” – our aim is to encourage new discoveries and encourage others to work with us in the same spirit of open innovation,” Witty said.

He added that the company was on the cusp of developing the world’s first anti-malarial vaccine, and that this would be made available as cheaply as possible to those countries where malaria is endemic.

“GSK is ready and willing to play its part in tackling global public health problems. Whether we’re sharing our compound library or making the world’s first malaria vaccine accessible, our goal is the same – to find tailor-made targeted solutions to specific problems. One size really doesn’t fit all. We are evolving, becoming more open, and finding new ways of working with others,” Witty added.

It is tempting to view Witty’s gestures with some cynicism – Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is so ingrained that any gesture is in danger of resembling a marketing ploy. Indeed, Witty opened his remarks by acknowledging that, “if you don’t have the trust of the societies you serve, you don’t have a long-term sustainable business model.”

But GSK ranks number one on the Access to Medicine Index, a Netherlands-based NGO that tracks data concerning drug companies’ pharmaceutical philanthropy towards poor countries. If the end result is that life-saving drugs are available in regions that, ten years ago drug companies deemed unprofitable to market to, then the benefit is the only important outcome.

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