Geneva’s leading French-language daily, La Tribune de Genève yesterday (9th August) carries an article on a Geneva company Cipka SA that holds intellectual property rights to an entirely new anti-malarial treatment, Gadelpas. This is composed of two natural molecules each extracted from two different plants that grow in sub-tropical climes.
The first tests carried out on patients in three hospitals in Nigeria led to a cure in 72% of the cases. Cipka Vice-President, Eric Stauffer, says ’We have a solution to fight against the scourge malaria. This product has no side-effects. We intend to market this cure taking into account the economic situation of the developing country at a price of only 1 to 2 USD per treatment.’
’Our aim is to build four production units in Venezuela, in Africa, in India and in southern China. We are looking for an investment of some 20 million Swiss francs to allow this construction to go ahead. We will then be in a position to produce 380 million treatments a year which corresponds to 40% of the world’s needs.
The announcement of the availability of this cure has excited considerable interest and some controversy. Both the World Health Organisation and the United Nations Development Programme in Geneva are in contact with Cipka Both organisations are vitally interested in any cure that can help to eradicate this terrible disease to which 41% of the world’s population is at risk, 60% of them children.
South-African born President and CEO, Olivier Wasem, is concerned that opposition to the new cure, whilst normal in these cases, may slow the introduction of this wonder drug where it is most needed. Collaboration is well advanced with a number of developing countries and he expects the cure to be made available in a number of them within a year. In particular, he emphasises that the product will be produced in developing countries themselves thus not only curing the disease domestically but offering a new local ‘pharmaceutical industry’ for export – a major plus in ‘one-crop’ countries.
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