Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- Series Editors' Preface
- Editors' Preface
- Introduction: Access to essential medicines: public health and international law
- Part I International trade
- Part II Innovation
- Part III Intellectual property
- 9 Opening the dam: patent pools, innovation and access to essential medicines
- 10 Open Source drug discovery: a revolutionary paradigm or a Utopian model?
- 11 Accessing and benefit sharing avian influenza viruses through the World Health Organization: a CBD and TRIPS compromise thanks to Indonesia's sovereignty claim?
- 12 The Lazarus Effect: the (RED) Campaign and creative capitalism
- Part IV Healthcare
- Bibliography
- Index
10 - Open Source drug discovery: a revolutionary paradigm or a Utopian model?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 August 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- Series Editors' Preface
- Editors' Preface
- Introduction: Access to essential medicines: public health and international law
- Part I International trade
- Part II Innovation
- Part III Intellectual property
- 9 Opening the dam: patent pools, innovation and access to essential medicines
- 10 Open Source drug discovery: a revolutionary paradigm or a Utopian model?
- 11 Accessing and benefit sharing avian influenza viruses through the World Health Organization: a CBD and TRIPS compromise thanks to Indonesia's sovereignty claim?
- 12 The Lazarus Effect: the (RED) Campaign and creative capitalism
- Part IV Healthcare
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Introduction
The success of Open Source software has attracted much attention and the applicability of Open Source models in non-software contexts has been proposed as an alternative innovation model and as a solution to some of the problems with the current intellectual property system. In recent years the applicability of Open Source models for drug discovery and development has been discussed in academic literature. Although there is much scepticism about the proposal to extend Open Source models/licences to non-software contexts, there is a growing interest in applying them in fields like biology and biotechnology, partly because of the success of non-proprietary initiatives like the SNP Consortium and the HapMap project and also because of initiatives like BIOS. In this chapter it is suggested that Open Source drug discovery (‘OSDD’) is a workable idea that deserves support to enable it to be tested in the real world. It is also contended that OSDD can be used with other initiatives to overcome the twin problems of access and affordability, although at this time one cannot assert that OSDD is always compatible with other proposals. Finally, OSDD is no panacea for all of the problems with pharmaceutical innovation, access and affordability. Its potential is untested but in the long run it may emerge as a workable model in drug discovery for neglected diseases and as a framework that is well suited for co-operation among developing countries in finding cures for diseases in those countries.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Incentives for Global Public HealthPatent Law and Access to Essential Medicines, pp. 263 - 283Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010
- 2
- Cited by