[opensourcepharma] a open source cure for Ebola?

[Els Torreele]

It's been fascinating to read some of the commentaries on the fact that we don't have a treatment against Ebola virus, eg:
http://www.vox.com/2014/8/4/5963751/the-real-cause-of-the-ebola-outbreak-its-not-what-you-think

As well as that there seem to be a few experimental treatments around, but all is shrouded in secrecy
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2014/08/experts-give-new-us-ebola-drug-africans-201485233636516828.html
http://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/outbreaks/guinea/qa-experimental-treatments.html
" The FDA cannot comment on the specifics of ongoing drug development programs and cannot reveal information that is not otherwise public concerning submissions covering such programs such as IND applications submissions."

Wouldn't this be a great opportunity for open source drug R&D, including crowdsourcing ideas, to speed up the discovery of a desperately needed new drug. Instead of having a few companies working privately on their own (with US gov support often), we could imagine opening it all up, share what we know about the virus, about the potential drug candidates out there, and then together build upon shared knowledge and progress?



Els Torreele, PhD
Director, Access to Essential Medicines Initiative
Public Health Program
Open Society Foundations
224 West 57th Street I New York, New York 10019
Tel: (+1)-212-548-0351 I M: (+1)-646-262-2053
els.torreele at opensocietyfoundations.org<mailto:els.torreele at opensocietyfoundations.org>
http://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/topics/access-medicines

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