Toronto Bioethics: Developing Countries in Biotechnology

At first glance, Peter Singer's new article in Nature Biotechnology (a special supplement) on the role of biotechnology in the developing world (and vise versa) might appear to be a strange kind of bioethics paper. The paper is complex enough as a business report to have been published in any major biotech business journal, and contains a full-on economic analysis of the development of new specific drugs and techniques in smaller and poorer nations, tools that both help indigenous populations deal with problems that would likely have been missed by developed world pharmaceutical companies, and that contribute themselves to exactly those companies.

Personally, I think it is great that a bioethics group did this, and it is all-too-obvious that only this kind of analysis can really jump-start a major discussion of the ethics of promoting developing world biotechnology.

Singer et al conclude:

The key findings underline the importance in developing countries of 1) focusing on local health needs ("necessity becomes opportunity"), 2) the role of the private sector in commercialization, 3) widespread collaboration, 4) specializing in a niche, and 5) long-term government support.

"The study offers a variety of 'lessons learned' that can help other countries build a local biotech sector that brings local health benefits. They may also be of relevance to industrially advanced nations," says Dr. Singer.

Development of biotech industries in developing countries is essential, he added. Because markets for drugs in industrialized countries are much more lucrative, the creation of health products for people in the poorer parts of the world has lagged badly behind. Of 1,393 new drugs marketed between 1975 and 1999, only 16 were for tropical and other diseases predominantly affecting developing countries -- and three of the 16, were for tuberculosis, which affects countries worldwide. More than 175 new drugs were developed for cardiovascular disease in the same period.