News
Neglected no longer
Over 1 billion people – often those living in remote, rural areas, urban slums or in conflict zones – suffer from one or more neglected tropical diseases. A new partnership from the Netherlands called euSEND(the European Solutions Enterprise on Neglected Diseases), provides the focus to tackle diseases of poverty and disadvantage.
euSEND is an initiative of, amongst others, the Dutch public private partnership TI Pharma and the Amsterdam Institute for Global Health and Development (AIGHD). Their mission is to increase the number of new products and services that are developed for neglected diseases.
With little economic and political voice, these diseases have a low profile and status in public health priorities. While new discoveries in medicine hold great promise, they will not be developed through the traditional model of drug development in the pharmaceutical industry, which requires a hefty investment in research and development to be offset by high returns from drug sales during a period of patent protection.
Thus, new approaches are required for effective investment in discovery, and that is where euSEND comes in.
Projects that euSEND is currently working on include bringing forward compounds shelved by other companies, the development of new diagnostic kits and providing new services for patients. However, euSEND is still on the lookout for new partners to participate and invest in projects.
euSEND has an innovative business model: it aims to develop concrete solutions for neglected diseases in an economically sustainable manner, thus creating continuity through economic value. euSEND projects are financed with equity, debt and subsidy; shareholders and lenders accept appreciable risks: some ventures will fail while others will succeed beyond expectation.
euSEND is a matchmaker and portfolio manager for public-private research & development consortia. It wants to bring together the best academic minds and private sector expertise from around the world to create a range of competences and recourses not accessible to a single enterprise. The aim of euSEND is to reach a tipping point by turning a previously unviable or abandoned project into a viable and affordable solution for patients with neglected diseases.