Finding Cures for Tropical Diseases: Is Open Source an Answer?

Tropical diseases affect more than 500 million people, one tenth of the world’s population.1 Malaria, for example, kills more than one million people each year.2 And yet, only about one percent of new drugs treat tropical diseases.3 For diseases prevalent in rich countries, patent incentives and commercial pharmaceutical houses have created health innovation systems that are the envy of the world. However, the patent system does not work for diseases in developing countries, where companies cannot sell enough patented products to cover their research and development (R&D) costs. Proposed solutions to address this problem fall into two categories: charitable adjustments to the patent system and non-profit venture capital firms. Proposals for charitable adjustments to the patent system generally involve using subsidies to prop up drug prices and