Royalties Will Be Paid to Bushmen.
The Bushman community and the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) have struck a deal in terms of which the council will pay the community 8% of all milestone payments it receives from Phytopharm, and 6% of all royalties received once the antiobesity drug derived from a local cactus is commercially available.
Two years ago it was announced that scientists at the CSIR had isolated and patented the active ingredient in hoodia, a cactus Bushmen have used for centuries to stave off hunger and thirst during hunting expeditions.
The council dubbed the active ingredient P57 and sold the development rights to a UK-based company Phytopharm, which sold the rights on to pharmaceutical conglomerate Pfizer.
The payments are subject to specific technical development targets which have been set for the next three to four years of P57's clinical development.
Sales of an antiobesity drug based on P57, from which royalty payments will flow, are not projected before 2008. The US obesity drug market is worth about 3bn annually. If P57 passes all its clinical trials, it could well become a blockbuster drug, generating millions of dollars in sales.
The community and the council said in a joint statement that the benefit-sharing model they had negotiated was based on established international benefitsharing models for the pharmaceutical industry.
The payments are subject to specific technical development targets which have been set for the next three to four years of P57's clinical development.
Sales of an antiobesity drug based on P57, from which royalty payments will flow, are not projected before 2008. The US obesity drug market is worth about 3bn annually. If P57 passes all its clinical trials, it could well become a blockbuster drug, generating millions of dollars in sales.
The community and the council said in a joint statement that the benefit-sharing model they had negotiated was based on established international benefitsharing models for the pharmaceutical industry.
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25 Mars 2003 à 13:26 dans
- English
