EmailEdinburgh is to become the first British university to help make cheap medicines available to the developing world by licensing research to pharmaceutical companies only on condition that poorer communities get life-saving drugs at cost price.
One in three people around the world has no access to basic medicines and 10 million children a year die for want of affordable and effective drugs. Now, under pressure from students, Edinburgh aims to force companies to supply cheap drugs in return for using patents held by the university. The idea has built on a World Health Organisation campaign supported by Bill Gates's Gates Foundation, Bill Clinton's Clinton HIV/Aids Initiative and the Department for International Development.
"Our role as a world-leading research university extends beyond innovation. We have a responsibility to make a significant and socially responsible contribution to society at large," said Professor David Webb, of the School of Clinical Sciences and Community Health. "There is a huge amount of work going on in the university at the moment into a range of viruses and conditions such as ticks and tick-borne pathogens, malaria and HIV. Some of the big universities in the United States are already going down the same route as us and Oxford has a similar policy they are looking to put into place.
"Of the challenges facing the world at present, global health and access to medicines is among the most crucial. We are hopeful that by making our medicines as accessible as possible to those in greatest need, we will make a real difference to the millions of people who die from often-preventable diseases every year."
More than a billion people are affected by diseases such as trypanosomiasis - of which sleeping sickness is one form - and cholera, for which there are very few safe and effective treatments. The victims are often from poorer countries, so there is little incentive for western companies to invest in research and development. Where medicines do exist, such as those for HIV, heart disease and diabetes, they are often prohibitively expensive outside of western economies.
Of the 35 million deaths from chronic disease that occurred in 2005, 80% occurred in low- and middle-income countries. However, scientists working within a number of universities have realised the influence they can have to intervene in the situation. Between 1991 and 2005, the number of patents held by universities more than doubled, giving them leverage over how the big pharmaceutical companies use their research.
Students at Edinburgh spent two years campaigning for the university to act. Last November, the Student Association Annual General Assembly voted unanimously in favour of a motion demanding acceptance of the licensing policy.
Mori Mansouri, UK National Coordinator for Universities Allied for Essential Medicines, described Edinburgh's adoption of the policy as a major step forward. "We want to ensure every health-related innovation developed in campus laboratories is made available in the developing world at the lowest possible cost, and increase the amount and impact of university research on neglected diseases," he said.
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