Open source drug discovery might yield results of several scientists who are toiling to find a cure for the poor man’s diseases such as tuberculosis and malaria, say experts. Where traditional drug research by profit-driven companies fail, open source holds a lot of promise of succeeding because of its multi-institutional approach as well as the possibilities of collective work. In a world where a person dies of tuberculosis every 10 minutes, open source drug discovery might provide the answer soon.
One of the major problems faced by open source drug discovery in the initial years is in establishing a base on which advance development can be made possible. However, gradually, the Indian scientific fraternity is now getting active and the global base of OSDD is slowly growing stronger. “Slowly, the world wide community will participate; at least people all over world are realising the importance of open drug discovery. A cure for malaria and tuberculosis may just be around the corner. We foresee that in about five years, we will complete clinical trials for malaria and tuberculosis,” added Zakir Thomas, project director, OSDD, New Delhi.
“Traditionally, most global drug companies are patent-driven, and are focused on profit making, and are not concerned with the common man's plight. At Open Source Drug Discovery (OSDD), which falls under the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, we have demonstrated to the whole world that so much progress can be done,” added Zakir Thomas. The progress made by OSDD in the few years since its inception in 2008 has been remarkable.