APEsphere - Merck gives experimental Malaria drug to non-profit

Report Bugs

Blogs we like

Resources

Dead tree version

Merck gives experimental Malaria drug to non-profit

Save Story

The story has been saved to your saved stories list.Go to Saved

Add this link to:

Report Abuse:

So that we can keep the site friendly, legal and on-topic, please click the Report Abuse button if this story breaks the APEsphere Code.

Added by apesphere on 21 Mar 2009
From: www.reuters.com

Image courtesy Gustty via Flickr

Merck & Co retains the option to partner with the not-for-profit, Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV) after testing.

According to the Reuters report, Merck has granted the Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV) an exclusive, royalty-free license to develop a compound discovered by Merck's scientists.

It looks as if Merck is simply outsourcing research to an organisation that is specifically funded for that purpose - an organisation which does not have to demonstrate market level investment returns on its research expenditure. Is this a smart way of bringing drugs to market aimed at the world's poor?

Andrew Newton is the author of The Handbook of Compliance: Making Ethics Work in Financial Services