Stopping scabies: Mark's startup is fighting 'neglected diseases'

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Stopping scabies: Mark's startup is fighting 'neglected diseases'

By Emma Koehn

The man behind a Melbourne company fighting diseases like scabies says social enterprise startups can offer an alternative path to developing drugs for "neglected" diseases, beyond that of big pharmaceutical companies.

"They [big businesses] are structured as shareholder, profit making organisations so they do what they need to do. And I think we’re looking to them to answer all of our questions about diseases of poverty and I think we’ve been looking in the wrong place," Medicines Development for Global Health managing director Mark Sullivan said when accepting the EY Social Entrepreneur of the Year award in Sydney last week.

Founder of Medicines Development for Global Health, Mark Sullivan. Sullivan won the EY social entrepreneur of the year award in Sydney last week.

Founder of Medicines Development for Global Health, Mark Sullivan. Sullivan won the EY social entrepreneur of the year award in Sydney last week.

Mr Sullivan traded roles in drug development at big pharmaceutical companies like GSK and Gilead to launch his own bio-pharmaceutical operation.

Medicines Development for Global Health has received Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval for the use of drug moxidectin for treating river blindness, a disease caused by parasitic worms and prevalent across more than 30 African nations, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).

From here, the company is working to through approval processes with the WHO and individual countries to get the treatment approved for nations where the disease is most prevalent.

Mr Sullivan said he's been motivated to have a true impact on so-called "neglected tropical diseases", which are categorised by the WHO and reflect diseases affecting a number of low income nations. The company believes it has found a model to generate a return on the development of treatments for these kinds of diseases where traditionally there has been few options.

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"There’s a real market failure in that area, you’re never getting your money back on your investment in the expenditure of doing the development, so we’ve come up with a model we think is sustainable for addressing it," he told the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.

The model includes drawing on investment from social venture funding, including a capital injection of $US13 million ($20 million) from the Gates Foundation-backed Global Health Investment Fund, to finalise the development of its moxidectin treatment.

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The company has also leveraged incentives to propel it into future growth. As part of developing the river blindness treatment, the team was awarded a coveted "priority review" voucher which allows a company to have drugs fast tracked through the FDA approval system.

It is possible for companies to sell these vouchers to other companies when they no longer need them. In May, Medicines Development for Global Health sold its voucher to Danish firm Novo Nordisk. While the exact price was not disclosed, these vouchers typically sell for more than $US100 million.

The startup will now turn its attention to a program for the treatment of scabies and how the moxidectin treatment can be applied to it.

Social venture is something I actually think is great, rather than just being there are taking a a handout and it never ends.

Mr Sullivan said this model and growth of social venture capital was a positive for developing solutions for these types of diseases.

"Social venture is something I actually think is great, rather than just being there taking a handout and it never ends. We wanted to return on investment," he said.

The startup is structured as a non-profit and therefore cannot access research incentive schemes like the research and development tax incentive.

Despite this, Mr Sullivan said having the settings right for both research and development was critical, particularly as Australia still has work to do on improving its strength in commercialising new drugs and products.

"It’s really important we have this kind of incentive. We need more of it to happen, as at the moment our skills as a nation in development is still wanting," he said.

The reporter travelled to Sydney as a guest of EY for the EY Entrepreneur of the Year awards. 

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