Challenges for the future: Research on HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis

Poverty Related Diseases Conference
13 November 2008

Good morning Ladies and Gentlemen

The phrase 'terrible triangle' once described religious persecution in the old Soviet Union, Mexico and Spain. Nowadays, our terrible triangle, the spectre of HIV/AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis, the main poverty related diseases, remains to haunt us. And, although this a secular label, there remains something almost biblical in the scale of suffering they cause, isn't there?

This is why I am pleased to see that this event is bringing together a small army of prominent scientists, policy makers, business representatives, NGOs, international organisations and disease experts, to participate over the next two days.

Welcome, all of you. We need to be here.

The programme for today and tomorrow establishes a crucial and critical mass for action on these three disease fronts. I was pleased to see that sessions are based around the ideas of 'gaining momentum' and 'keeping focus' – the image of continual progress is one that appeals to me.

It's a little like a bobsleigh – momentum can be assured, gravity will take care of that, but if you don't keep focus by keeping going in the right direction, then you can just as easily end up upside down in a snowdrift. Bobsleigh drivers need to make continual adjustments to keep them on track. And this is what we need to do. We need to gain momentum, keep our eye on the ball and we need to have all the required knowledge at our fingertips to maintain a straight course.

And that is why this conference rightly concentrates on action – action to improve the conditions for many millions of people in Europe and in developing countries.

Sitting in our comfortable European homes, with well-developed healthcare systems, it is all too easy to forget about the pernicious impact that infectious disease has across the world. So let me spell it out – infectious diseases are responsible for almost half of all deaths in developing countries. AIDS, TB and malaria – the founder members of that terrible triangle - kill 5 million people each year.

Do you find that a little difficult to picture? Then imagine almost all of the Danish population wiped out by infectious disease in one year.

Would we tolerate that? I think we all know the answer.

A health crisis of these dimensions is disastrous on a personal level, but it is also a major obstacle to development. In short – a major threat to humanity. Doing nothing is therefore not an option.

But what can we do to make sure that our work has an impact?

The answer is easy to say, but not so easy to do. It's all about research responsibility.

Everyone with an interest and influence needs to take responsibility. That means:

Countries, not just European countries, have to take responsibility through targeted policies and real cooperation;
The pharmaceutical industry needs to plan and implement research and development strategies which deal directly with the problem;
Donors and research funding agencies continue to give financially and keep on giving;
Developing countries’ governments must take the responsibility to design and implement sound and comprehensive research and health policies; and
Scientists have to open up and participate in constructive dialogue with relevant policy makers, governments and business.

As I said, this is easier said than done.

But if we want to get there, we have to concentrate and be pragmatic. We have to concentrate our efforts on those actions that will have the biggest impact. This is a simple rule for life and for business: when the stakes are this high, we must invest in the areas where we think we will get the best return.

The objective of this conference quite rightly therefore, is to identify these actions and how Europe can contribute to implementing them.

Of course we are not starting from scratch. Far from it.

Over the course of the four years of FP6, we allocated more than €450 million to research and development into new drugs, vaccines and clinical investigations for poverty related diseases. The results were significant. There are now more than 80 collaborative projects involving more than 250 research groups.

These projects have assembled academic researchers, the pharmaceutical industry and SMEs in a joint effort to explore, understand and provide solutions for HIV/AIDS, malaria and TB. They have also been the starting point for a new web of collaboration across sectors and national boundaries:

More industry partners than ever before joined the European research projects during FP6 – almost 20% of all partners were from the private sector;
An increasing number of partners from disease-endemic countries participated in FP6 with as many as 12% of the participants coming from developing countries.

This is proof positive that the Framework Programmes can provide the starting point for bringing the most relevant stakeholders together to work on these complex societal problems.

The other major achievement was the launch of the European and Developing countries Clinical Trials Partnership (EDCTP). And, more importantly, it was an important step towards the creation of a long-term, sustainable and genuine research partnership between the EU and developing countries.

And although the EDCTP has had a somewhat turbulent start since it was launched, it is now set to become one of the crucial facilitators in accelerating the clinical development of new products against HIV, malaria and TB. Only in June this year, the EDCTP approved over €80 million for research into these three diseases in Africa – a boost for European investment in research into poverty-related disease and a shot in the arm for cooperation between European and African researchers.

I said that the Framework Programmes play a major role in our challenge to fight poverty related disease, and just as in FP6, FP7 will pick up the baton and stimulate even more sustained support for the EDCTP from all the relevant stakeholders.

This is essential if we want to sustain the promising results from FP6 - more effort is needed to translate them into products with the potential to really make an impact on global public health.

Renewed efforts will be needed to:

maintain the support and incentives for early development and delivery of new and affordable medicines for HIV/AIDS, malaria and TB - cost should not be a barrier to treatment;
boost the support for the discovery and development of effective measures to prevent and control these scourges before they can gain a hold;
co-ordinate global research efforts against poverty-related diseases by launching new partnerships between the public and private sector. Its worth repeating that all the stakeholders - just like at this event - need to be mobilised and become involved;
work jointly with global partners, in particular the disease-endemic countries, on these issues.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

This year, Françoise Barré-Sinoussi and Luc Montagnier were awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine for their work in discovering the human immunodeficiency virus, better known as HIV, the virus that leads to AIDS. This proves two things. First, that Europe has real research talent in the area of disease research, and second, that we have not forgotten the importance of battling the diseases that affect the poorest amongst us hardest.

This is why we are here - because we will never forget and we will never stop.

I want this meeting to help identify the bottlenecks and clarify the role that EC-supported research can play in battling poverty related diseases. We are not here to address the fight against communicable diseases in general - that would be too broad a strategy. We are here to define the specific priorities for research in this field.

I suggest we might start by addressing the following questions:

How can we ensure that poverty related diseases get the attention needed in terms of research and development so that lives can be saved?
Are there research gaps in the fight against poverty related disease that could be filled by FP7-supported action or by other EU initiatives?
How can we overcome the current bottlenecks in research for poverty-related diseases?
How can the public sector better engage the private sector in a joint battle against infectious diseases?

Finding the answers to these questions is both our duty and, without exaggeration, a matter of life and death for many people.

Let's not disappoint the people that need us most.

Thank you.