31/03/21

R&D gap stymies access to children’s medicines – report

儿童接受药物
A pharmacist dispenses medicine to a sick child. A new report says that only about six per cent of pharma R&D projects target children. Copyright:Vicki Francis/国际发展部,(CC由2.0). This image has been cropped.

Speed read

  • Only about six per cent of pharma R&D projects target children
  • “改变游戏的”治疗缺乏访问计划来达到有需要的人
  • Joined up effort is needed to ‘drive market incentives, leverage funding’

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只有约百分之六的研究and development (R&D) projects from 20 leading global pharmaceutical companies target children, despite major gaps in the paediatric medicines pipeline, a report shows.

Many new treatments are under development which could “dramatically improve” thehealthchildrenin low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), says the Netherlands-based进入医学基金会,这产生了报告。但是,许多项目缺乏访问计划,以确保药物到达需要的药物。

The analysis released last week (25 March) is based on the2021 Access to Medicine Index, an independent ranking of the world’s leading pharmaceutical companies on their actions to improve access tomedicineworldwide, published in January.

“We need to get targeted focus and action from companies and the global health community about the challenges in paediatric markets, which are often not prioritised and result in millions of preventable deaths,” said Claudia Martinez, research programme manager for the Access to Medicine Index.

“We need to get targeted focus and action from companies and the global health community about the challenges in paediatric markets, which are often not prioritised and result in millions of preventable deaths,”

克劳迪娅·马丁内斯(Claudia Martinez),获得医学指数

Over five million deaths occur each year among children under five from preventable and treatabledisease, according toUNICEF, with the majority in LMICs.

Over 5 million children under 5 die yearly from preventable and treatable diseases. Image credit:进入医学基金会.

The report, which analysed数据from 20 pharmaceutical companies, says only 69 of a total 1,073 R&D projects, about six per cent, target children under 12-years old.

尽管有18家公司针对儿童的项目,但大多数公司仅专注于三种疾病:下呼吸道感染,癌症和18beplay官网 . The pipeline for diseases such as sickle cell disease, epilepsy and diarrhoeal disease that disproportionately affect children in LMICs s are completely empty.

该报告引用了小儿管道的挑战,包括临床试验入学率,监管要求和艰难的市场经济学,限制了治疗可用性,该报告提供了五个“改变游戏规则”治疗的例子,作为良好实践的例子。

These are treatments currently in late-stage development that have significant potential for LMICs including a nasal powder for severe hypoglycaemia from Eli Lilly, a dispersible tablet form of dolutegravir, a medicine from GSK for treating HIV, and praziquantel, a taste-masked dispersible tablet from Merck and Astrellas for treating paediatric schistosomiasis, or bilharzia, a water-borne parasitic disease predominantly found in Africa.

“发展和投资确实不够。如果您不考虑访问计划以及如何确保人们访问他们,那么这是一份工作。”她说。

Defined as concrete, targeted plans that ensure new products are accessible and affordable in all the markets where they’re needed, access plans were found with 31 of the 69 paediatric projects. Only three of the five “game-changing” treatments had such plans.

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对于无国界医生(MSF)访问活动的访问政策顾问Manuel Martin来说,这并不像公司是否有访问计划那样简单。

“The details of the access plans are what matters and following up on their progress,” he said. “Companies may be measuring themselves against each other based on the report, but this may not be the gold standard we want.”

马丁认为,获得儿科药物是一个超越公司实践的广泛而系统的问题。他说:“这突显了世界领导人,政府和政策制定者需要做更多的事情,这是对医学基金会的访问所承认的。”

The analysis calls for pharmaceutical companies, product development partners, governments and the global health community to work together to drive market incentives, integrate access planning and leverage government and donor funding.

“What’s coming through the pipeline and the sheer scale of the gap shows we need change faster,” Martinez added.