Ancient remedy: Drug-resistant TB is a global problem

In an unprecedented move, drug multinational Bayer announced last Monday that it will allow its new antibiotic moxifloxacin to be tested against tuberculosis, one of the most neglected diseases in the world. Bayer’s decision is a part of a deal with The Global Alliance for TB Drug Development, a non-profit enterprise backed by private donors and government research institutes.

The decision is unusual, because pharmaceutical giants rarely sacrifice their best-selling drugs to treat diseases of the poor. And they never test them on a poor man’s disease like TB apprehending huge losses. Bayer earns nearly half a billion dollars from the antibiotic in the US and Europe.

The altruistic gesture by such a big company has been hailed as historic by charitable organisations and health workers involved in the treatment of TB which kills about two million people every year and maims another seven million around the world. The ancient disease still kills so many people ? mostly in poor countries ? simply because the diagnostic tests and drugs deployed to deal with the microbe causing it are pretty primitive. The main test? sputum smear microscopy ? was developed by Robert Koch in 1882 and the three primary drugs are more than 35 years old. At least four per cent of all patients worldwide with TB are resistant to at least one of these drugs and the co-infection of the TB bacterium with HIV has made matters worse.

So long no drug giant has shown an interest in blowing its profits chasing a cure they know potential customers cannot afford. They’d rather pump in their money on blockbuster drugs to brighten up lives of people who are already healthy. Among the biggest sellers are drugs to grow hair, relieve impotence or lower cholesterol. Simply put, drug giants will rather find out a cure for a bald US millionaire than a dying TB patient in Africa.

For years charitable organisations like Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) have been appealing to the conscience of drug giants so that they spend a fraction of their R&D budget for drugs to treat neglected diseases like kala azar, sleeping sickness and TB. In response, all the drug giants could do was either to offer old drugs that have no commercial value or to donate ‘veterinary’ deworming pills to treat ‘human’ worm diseases like filaria or trachoma. So much for the so-called corporate social responsibility. Actually, these companies rule in a dog-eat-dog marketplace which operates on a cold logic: he who can’t pay for his medicine should die.

So Bayer’s noble gesture is exemplary. Hope other big pharmaceutical companies get inspired by the move and wake up to the cause of neglected diseases.