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October 2002 Donors Are Vital Component in Microbicide Research Developing a new pharmaceutical product requires a considerable investment of both time and money. In 2001, the Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development estimated that the average cost of researching, developing, and bringing a new drug to market was $802 million. The microbicide field has not attracted any large pharmaceutical companies to take the initiative and invest the necessary resources. So the research and development burden has fallen on the shoulders of governmental, nongovernmental, and academic organizations, and small biotechnology firms, which have led the efforts to produce successful microbicides. Critical to their work is the support of the governments, foundations, corporations, and individuals who recognize the potential that microbicides offer in the battle against HIV and AIDS. Significant funding from the public and private sectors has expedited progress in the Population Council’s microbicide program. With this funding, the Council is continuing to test its lead candidate microbicide, Carraguard (see story above), and develop second-generation candidate microbicides. The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has provided financial support for Council microbicide research for nearly a decade. Funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation helped identify carrageenan for use as a candidate microbicide. Other funders that have played a key role are CONRAD, the United Kingdom Department for International Development, the Parthenon Trust, the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, the Hewlett and Rockefeller foundations, and especially the National Institutes of Health. Most recently, in November 2001, the U.S. National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) awarded the Population Council a grant of $6.8 million aimed at developing new microbicide candidates. In February 2002, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation provided a $20 million grant to support advanced clinical trials of Carraguard. This donation will provide a substantial part of the funding needed for the large-scale study of 6,000 women in southern Africa. This is the third Gates Foundation grant assisting the Council’s microbicide research. David M. Phillips, the principal investigator and director of the Council’s biomedical research on microbicides, notes, "As we increase our understanding of the mechanisms of sexual transmission of HIV and other pathogens, we gain insight into new approaches for developing a microbicide that will be more efficacious against HIV and be effective against a broader spectrum of other sexually transmitted pathogens.” | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
