Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, Anusandhan Bhawan, 2 Rafi Marg, New Delhi 110 001, India.
Tuberculosis (Edinb). 2011 Sep;91(5):479-86. doi: 10.1016/j.tube.2011.06.004. Epub 2011 Jul 22.
It is being realized that the traditional closed-door and market driven approaches for drug discovery may not be the best suited model for the diseases of the developing world such as tuberculosis and malaria, because most patients suffering from these diseases have poor paying capacity. To ensure that new drugs are created for patients suffering from these diseases, it is necessary to formulate an alternate paradigm of drug discovery process. The current model constrained by limitations for collaboration and for sharing of resources with confidentiality hampers the opportunities for bringing expertise from diverse fields. These limitations hinder the possibilities of lowering the cost of drug discovery. The Open Source Drug Discovery project initiated by Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, India has adopted an open source model to power wide participation across geographical borders. Open Source Drug Discovery emphasizes integrative science through collaboration, open-sharing, taking up multi-faceted approaches and accruing benefits from advances on different fronts of new drug discovery. Because the open source model is based on community participation, it has the potential to self-sustain continuous development by generating a storehouse of alternatives towards continued pursuit for new drug discovery. Since the inventions are community generated, the new chemical entities developed by Open Source Drug Discovery will be taken up for clinical trial in a non-exclusive manner by participation of multiple companies with majority funding from Open Source Drug Discovery. This will ensure availability of drugs through a lower cost community driven drug discovery process for diseases afflicting people with poor paying capacity. Hopefully what LINUX the World Wide Web have done for the information technology, Open Source Drug Discovery will do for drug discovery.
人们逐渐意识到，传统的封闭式、以市场为导向的药物研发方法可能并不适合发展中国家的疾病，如结核病和疟疾，因为大多数患有这些疾病的患者支付能力较差。为确保为这些疾病患者开发新药物，有必要制定一种替代药物研发过程的模式。当前的模式受到合作和资源共享的限制，以及保密的限制，阻碍了从不同领域汇集专业知识的机会。这些限制阻碍了降低药物研发成本的可能性。印度科学与工业研究理事会发起的开源药物发现项目采用了开源模式，以促进跨越地理边界的广泛参与。开源药物发现通过合作、开放共享、采取多方面的方法以及从新药发现的不同前沿取得进展来强调综合科学。由于开源模型基于社区参与，因此通过生成针对持续新药发现的替代方案的存储库，具有自我维持持续发展的潜力。由于发明是由社区产生的，因此开源药物发现开发的新化学实体将通过多个公司的参与，以非排他的方式进行临床试验，这些公司的大部分资金来自开源药物发现。这将确保通过面向支付能力较差的人群的低成本社区驱动的药物发现过程，获得治疗这些疾病的药物。希望开源药物发现能够像万维网为信息技术所做的那样，为药物发现做出贡献。
