What challenges are in the future for pharma?

Lu Rahman asks whether finding a cure for modern diseases is the only challenge the pharmaceutical sector faces?

Social media is awash with pharma conspiratory theories. For anyone who hasn’t seen, the latest one doing the rounds is re-emergence of the MMR-autism issue fuelled by the publicity of a Robert de Niro-backed film. Co-founder of the Tribeca Film Festical, de Niro baked the film directed by Andrew Wakefield, the doctor who made the original claims that there was a link between the jab and autism. Following outcry from the medical community de Niro pulled the film but not before the incident had re-awakened the argument that the vaccine could lead to autism.

An article by Laurie Tarkan in Fortune outlined the incident, saying that according to Autism Today, an organisation advocating research into autism: “Over the last two decades, extensive research has asked whether there is any link between childhood vaccinations and autism. The results of this research are clear: Vaccines do not cause autism.”

For the medical and medtech communities this type of controversy is not only damaging to the health of us all but also detracts from the work being carried out to both protect and cure us from a range of modern illnesses.

It was a similar scenario earlier this year as the Zika virus made headline news. While the World Health Organisation (WHO) and companies such as Sanofi and Novartis voiced the need to find a cure and / or vaccine for the virus, conspiracy theories were kicking in that the vaccine had indeed been created before the disease itself.

Gary Barnes writes on Truth Kings: “Which came first, the virus or the vaccine? Well in the case of Zika, it is starting to appear more and more likely that the answer is the vaccine. With rumors of a Zika virus vaccine on the horizon, it is beginning to seem as though the pharmaceutical industry was more than prepared for Zika virus fears to create an atmosphere of mayhem.”

Of course, this isn’t quite the truth and while the pharma sector has been working on a vaccine – Bharat Biotech  International in Hyderabad, India was the first company to file a patent for a Zika vaccine and began working on the product months before the world was made aware of this healthg epidemic – it doesn’t mean the vaccine was created before the virus.

While the public is subjected to stories aimed at harming the pharma sector, the way in the industry rises to the challenge of tackling illness and disease is often overlooked. Of course scaremongering stories make better headlines than announcing that a Zika vaccine may only be months away. And what about Ebola? Isn’t it funny that we don’t see headlines such as Reuters’ ‘Experts warn complacency on Ebola may leave vaccine work unfinished’ plastered all over Facebook for Joe Public to get excited about?

In the article, written at the end of March, Kate Kelland, Reuters,  wrote: “Great progress has been made in Ebola vaccine development in the last two years, according to a report by an international panel of infectious disease experts, but this ‘could grind to a halt as memories of the outbreak in West Africa begin to fade’.”

According to Jeremy Farrar, director of the Wellcome Trust: “The job is still not done…As Ebola infection rates come under control it's a huge concern that complacency sets in, attention moves to more immediate threats and Ebola vaccine development is left half-finished."

I may be being cynical but I’d put money on Ebola hitting the headlines again if someone were to write a salacious story about the origins of the disease or the harm a potential cure might bring.

While mainstream media teases its readership with potential  horrific outcomes of new-launch drugs, where are the stories celebrating success? We grow up learning to celebrate the discovery of penicillin, or Edward Jenner’s work to eradicate smallpox, and we think nothing of the polio vaccine being a regular staple in the quest to keep our children healthy. Meanwhile society is shocked to read of the rise of TB, outbreaks of scarlet fever. But have we ever seen anyone high-five the news that Novartis has made cancer and heart disease drugs affordable in Kenya or the news that Eli-Lilly has announced a breakthrough drug for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease?

Last month EPM reported that the University of Manchester had been given £177,713 to fund the development of a Zika virus vaccine. It’s expected that the results will take around 18 months and may lead to multiple targets for other diseases.

Tom Blanchard, honorary senior lecturer at The University of Manchester, said: “We know that there’s an urgent need for this vaccine but we’ll be working carefully to deliver a product which is safe and effective and which can be quickly deployed to those who need it.

“If we can also use this vaccine on multiple targets then this will represent an exciting step forward in dealing with these kinds of outbreaks.”

In the last year we have come closer to a cure for cancer that works by attacking the ‘Achilles Heel’ of the disease, a breakthrough in diabetes care thanks to a probiotic pill and a blood test for Alzheimer’s which could lead to early intervention of the condition. Step back in to 2015 and GSK announced groundbreaking news that it had developed Mosquirix, a vaccine for malaria which had been given EU approval. While there have been some initial stumbling blocks with the vaccine, GSK has been reported as revealing it had not profited from the product and that it was reinvesting money made back into research on malaria and other diseases.

The pharmaceutical sector regularly rises to the challenge of illness and disease. Perhaps as modern patients we have become complacent and expect a cure no matter what making breakthroughs in treatment less overwhelming than they should be? It’s evident that the public like a headline which sparks indignation but as companies invest considerable amounts of money tackling new disease and the rise of modern illness it’s unfortunate that the sector not only faces the challenge of finding new cures but of presenting them to a receptive and grateful audience.