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AFRICA
CVJAFRICA • Volume 26, No 2, H3Africa Supplement, March/April 2015
The projected increase in NCDs across developing countries
offers an opportunity for GSK to participate alongside global
players to help improve the collective understanding of the
specific variations of disease in low-resource settings. Building
on the success of GSK’s Tres Cantos Open Lab, the company’s
vision is to create a new global R&D effort, the Africa NCD
Open Lab, with GSK working in partnership with African
researchers to conduct NCD-related research in Africa. The
results of this research will be published in order to disseminate
relevant insights to the wider community. To do this, GSK will
fully engage with the scientific and clinical research communities
in Africa to bring on-the-ground expertise and experience to
address the problem.
GSK working in global collaboration
GSK recognises that by working in partnership with
non-governmental organisations, governments, academic
institutions and other companies, it can achieve more for patients
than it can alone. It currently has research collaborations with
more than 3 000 external organisations, including other companies,
academic institutions and research charities.
9
For example, a five-
year strategic partnership with Save the Children aims to help
save one million children’s lives.
10
The partnership will combine
expertise, resources, and capabilities and bring much-needed
medicines and vaccines to some of the world’s poorest children,
train thousands of healthcare workers, and develop medicines to
address diseases in these paediatric populations. As part of the
Save the Children partnership, GSK’s Maternal and Neonatal
R&D Unit is developing a gel form of a GSK antiseptic product
used in mouthwash to help prevent sepsis in newborn babies.
Vision for Africa NCD Open Lab
Improving healthcare infrastructure and access to care is a key
element of addressing NCDs in Africa. Before discovering and
developing new medicines specifically for African patients, more
needs to be done to understand the burden of these diseases. In
addition, there are significant gaps in our knowledge about the
diversity of the causes of NCDs in Africa, their presentation,
and the responses to medicines (possibly driven by genetic
variation, environmental influence or behavioural factors).
To address the knowledge gaps, the research will focus
on better understanding the unique aspects (e.g. genotypic,
phenotypic, cultural and environmental context) of NCDs in the
African setting through translational research that will integrate
basic laboratory-based, clinical and population-based research.
New research is required to better understand how these diseases
develop, how they present, and how patients can best be treated
in the African context.
The Africa NCD Open Lab will be centred at GSK’s
R&D hub in Stevenage, UK, which together with the multiple
partnerships, including with local African research institutes,
will provide a world-class, dynamic and highly networked R&D
environment that will deliver high-quality and impactful research
outputs. This environment will provide a unique opportunity
to strengthen African research capability and train a new
generation of African scientific leaders in NCDs.
While the GSK component will be managed as an
independent laboratory, it will have full access to wider GSK
R&D expertise and infrastructure. The majority of the research
will be conducted in Africa by African researchers, with GSK
contributing resources and expertise. Examples of the kinds of
support GSK could provide for African principal investigators
in this collaborative framework include clinical study design,
biostatistics, genetic analysis expertise, bio-informatics,
epidemiology and therapeutic expertise in cardiovascular,
metabolic and respiratory medicine, and oncology.
A key aim of the Open Lab will be to support a robust R&D
training programme in collaboration with leading academic
groups, linked with research centres in Africa to build local
scientific capability. The training programme will be integrated
with the activities of the laboratory; GSK will aim to ensure the
active involvement of local scientists in the research projects so
that sustainable and local expertise will be built. The Open Lab
will also support the education and training of African scientific
researchers through partnering African researchers with GSK/
academic researchers. Furthermore, the Africa NCD Open Lab
will build on existing GSK partnerships and establish capability,
combining the strengths of a large research-based healthcare
company with academic and field experts.
An independent scientific advisory board will be established
and charged to provide input on the strategy of the collaborative
R&D effort, support the identification of high-quality and
impactful research projects for inclusion in the portfolio, and
monitor delivery progress. The scientific advisory board will be
chaired by a leading African scientist, will include recognised
external experts in the field, and will have majority African
representation. Specific research opportunities will be reviewed
and approved by the board and teams assembled by GSK.
In November 2014, the first call for research proposals was
launched. Up to £4 million will be made available to fund
research proposals. It is anticipated that funded projects will
generate new knowledge on the unique disease mechanisms,
pathophysiology and aetiology of NCDs in African patients.
Ambition by 2025
By 2025, the aim is to initiate and deliver 25 high-impact research
projects whose outputs will lead to better understanding of
NCDs in Africa, and the improved use of medicines, contributing
towards reaching the World Health Assembly goal to reduce
avoidable mortality from NCDs by 25% by 2025. Moreover, the
World Class
Academic
Groups
GSK R&D UK Lab
Scientific Advisory
Board
African
Research
Centres
Funding
partners
Access to full range of GSK capabilities
Training Program
Fig. 1.
Overview of the GSK Africa NCD Open Lab partner-
ship model.