How to get to the green-yellow (Brazilian) pharmaceuticals?

EDITORIAL

How to get to the green-yellow (Brazilian) pharmaceuticals?

According to experts and medicine-developing companies' executives, the average investment for discovering a new pharmaceutical, considering the whole process of the pharmaceutical innovative chain, which starts with the conception of the new therapeutic agent molecular architecture and finishes on the drugstore shelves, is around US$ 800 millions. Such amount includes the researched molecule failure financial costs and all the new pharmaceutical launching advertisement.

It is widely reported by the pharmaceutical companies that, out of 10,000 researched molecules, only one becomes a medicine and that their investments in RD&I correspond to ca. 10% of their billing. As a matter of fact, the process of innovation in pharmaceuticals and medicines requires time and resources, that is, around 10 years and hundreds of millions of dollars.

Such costs and the regulatory agency strict regulations turn the discovery of new medicines into a high-risk investment demanding huge sums of money.

The urgent need for innovation, the motive power of the innovative pharmaceutical company, as well as the present restricted capacity of adequately doing so, have inspired some mergers of pharmaceutical industries, regarded as leaders, giving birth to new super-companies. It has also led to the acquisition of high-tech companies, which, during the last ten years, has contributed to the dynamism of the world pharmaceutical market, able to reach ca. US$785 billions in 2009 and forecasts of US$ 1,300 billions in 2020.

Some analysts believe that the key to the success of the discovery of really innovative pharmaceuticals lies in the size of the company itself.

There is no doubt that the investment capacity, dependent on the company capital, is one of the important factors in the developing process. However, the lack of large pharmaceutical companies with national capital in Brazil,¹ able to cope with the big multinational pharmacies, some with chifre-d'affaires superior to the GDP of some poor nations, makes it necessary to devise strategies able to make the real green–yellow pharmaceutical possible, compatible with the requirements of the Brazilian population health and the reality of the sector market.

Working out such strategies is not simple at all. It demands, first of all, coordination and governmental partnerships with the industrial and the academic sectors.

Only two pharmaceuticals that got to the drugstore shelves have actually been developed in Brazil: one represented by a synthetic pure substance molecule lodenafil (Helleva^R) of the Cristalia Pharmaceutical Chemical Products Ltd., indicated for the erectile dysfunction treatment and the Ache Lab herbal Acheflan, for topical use, from Cordia verbenacea DC., for the chronic tendinitis and the myofascial pain.

For a market like the Brazilian one, the retail sales and wholesale trade of which are expected to reach US$ 16.5 billions in 2010, two pharmaceuticals only is too little and that is one of the reasons for the trade deficit of the health sector: about US$ 4.7 billions.

For Brazil to become a player in the discovery of new pharmaceuticals, it is necessary that, first of all, the good medicinal chemist academic groups receive continuous investments and are encouraged by the funding agencies to establish solid partnerships with Brazilian entrepreneurs, in a comfortable legal situation for both.

Only five medicinal chemistry research groups have already produced, in Brazil, more than five thousand new original molecules in search for prototypes. Such chemolibrary (library of compounds), though small, has great scientific value, because it has been designed based on solid medicinal chemistry planning.

If even the big pharmaceutical companies value the medicinal chemistry academic groups, why is it so difficult in Brazil, with no tradition or big pharmaceutical companies, establish academy-lab partnerships?

The discovery of new pharmaceuticals in Brazil requires such partnerships. Establish them, how? This is the moment. Nowadays Brazil has a good industrial base, highly qualified medicinal chemistry academic research groups and PhDs prepared for the challenge. A catalyst is needed so that the reaction able to produce a new Brazilian pharmaceutical industry panorama occurs. Only then will the green-yellow pharmaceuticals arrive.

Angelo C. Pinto - UFRJ

JBCS Editor

Member of the Governance and Monitoring Committee - (INCT-INOFAR)

Eliezer Jesus de Lacerda Barreiro - UFRJ

Chairman of the National Institute of Science and

Pharmaceuticals and Medicine Technology

• 1. Barreiro, E. J. L.; Pinto, A. C.; J. Braz. Chem. Soc. 2010, 21, 775.

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  16 Dec 2010
• Date of issue
  Dec 2010