Project: Open Source Drug Discovery

Application of open source licensing to vaccine and medicine discovery:

Open Source Drug Discovery

Aim

This research project aims to create a business model for Open Source Drug Discovery that will assist governments, non-profit organizations and industry with the application of an open source approach to pharmaceutical, biological and vaccine discovery and development.

Background

Open source licensing, widely used within the computer software industry, allows an individual to share intellectual property rather than restricting access. It guarantees that other individuals or companies can access, distribute and modify the information so long as they credit their source, state that the information is publicly available and in some cases, agree to make their incremental improvements available as well. Generally, items licensed under open source are freely available. For a more specific definition of open source, see the Open Source Initiative’s definition.

There are a myriad of phrases closely related to “open source” such as “free software”, “open innovation”, “open access” and “open knowledge”. “Free software” is practically the same concept as open source with the addition of a political emphasis – proponents believe that all software should be open source. Sometimes the two terms are combined in FLOSS (free/libre/open source software).

“Open innovation” conveys a much broader idea. University of California at Berkeley’s Henry Chesbrough has championed the concept, which encourages companies to actively supplement their internal knowledge stocks with external sources. “Open access” is a general term with varying meanings depending upon the context. When used to discuss content, it generally means the free access to books, journals, media, etc. “Open knowledge” is defined by the Open Definition as knowledge that anyone is free to use, reuse, and redistribute it — subject only to the requirement to attribute and share-alike.

Project Description

This research project focuses on the application of Open Source Drug Discovery to poorly functioning markets for drug innovation, namely those of “neglected diseases”. These are diseases endemic to developing countries where individuals and society are unable to pay the high prices required to spur on pharmaceutical research and development. These are also referred to by WHO as Type II and III diseases. Type II are those diseases that are incident to both rich and poor countries, but with a substantial proportion of the cases in poor countries (for example, HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis). Type III are those diseases that are overwhelmingly or exclusively incident in the developing countries (such as trypanosomiasis and onchocerciasis).

This is a multidisciplinary project, principally focusing on the area of health economics, but also taking into account research performed in the fields of law (pertaining to intellectual property), bioinformatics, public health, business administration, philosophy and ethics.

Research Objectives

The research objectives are:

1.    To identify the facilitators and barriers to uptake of open source licensing in general (a systematic review)

2.    To establish the economic, legal, structural and practical factors pertaining to the uptake of Open Source Drug Discovery amongst researchers and institutions that perform research on Type II and III medicines/vaccines

3.    To learn from the experiences of Open Source Drug Discovery initiatives regarding if and how they can attract volunteers and create a collaborative model

4.    To develop a robust Open Source Drug Discovery business model that promotes the facilitating factors and inhibits the barriers for uptake followed by an evaluation of the viability of the model

 

These objectives should assist with the ultimate objective of assessing whether the use of open source can assist in generating new vaccines and drugs for Type II and III diseases more quickly and cheaply than traditional business models based on intellectual property protection.

Funding

This research project is funded by the Research Council of Norway, hosted at the Norwegian Knowledge Centre for Health Services and linked to the Institute of Health and Society at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Oslo.

Participants

	Annette Alstadsæter is an advisor for the project. She is an Associate Professor for the Department of Health Management and Health Economics, University of Oslo. Annette holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration.
	Christine Årdal is the principal researcher for the project. She is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Oslo. Christine holds a Bachelor of Science in Business (1994) from Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota as well as a Master of Business Administration (2001) from Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University. Christine has worked in the healthcare industry for more than 10 years in U.S.A., United Kingdom and Norway.
	John-Arne Røttingen is the primary advisor to the project. He is the Chief Executive of the Norwegian Knowledge Center for Health Services and adjunct professor at the University of Oslo. He is a MD and additionally holds a Ph.D. from the University of Oslo and a Master of Science in Epidemiology from the University of Oxford. John-Arne has been the chief delegate for Norway in WHO negotiations regarding public health, innovation and intellectual property rights.
	Stephen Maurer is an advisor for the project. He is Director of the Goldman School Project on Information Technology and Homeland Security ("ITHS"). ITHS serves as a focal point for the School's science, innovation, technology initiatives. Steve holds a B.A. degree from Yale University and a J.D. in law from Harvard University. He is one of the founders of the concept of open source drug discovery.

Contact

For more information about the project or for questions, please contact Christine Årdal at christine.ardal (at) kunnskapssenteret.no