A lawyer for the San Council of South Africa is confident that obesity drug trials based on a Kalahari cactus will continue despite pharmaceutical company Pfizer’s withdrawal from the project.
Roger Chennels said on Thursday he was confident that trials in the drug development project, dubbed P57, would continue.
He confirmed that Pfizer, the world’s biggest drug company, had abandoned its work on P57, leaving it in the hands of British pharmaceutical Phytopharm.
Southern Africa’s San people stand to gain millions if the commercial development of P57 from extracts of the hoodia cactus should succeed.
They have been using the hoodia for centuries as an appetite and thirst suppressant and are to be compensated for this indigenous knowledge.
Chennels said Phytopharm would now need a new partner to get the drug to the market.
Although Pfizer’s withdrawal appeared to be bad news on the surface, it was not an indication of any failure of the drug yet, Chennels said.
”The withdrawal merely followed a decision by Pfizer to rather develop a synthetic product than a complex botanical drug,” he said.
”It is not all bad news, although it should slow the development process down.”
Chennels said the San recently received their first compensation of R260 000 from a deal struck with the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR).
The CSIR patented the hoodia in 1996 to be developed into a potential obesity treatment. The council recently agreed to compensate the San for this as commercial development proceeded.
They had licensed Phytofarm in 1977 to undertake the development and commercialisation of the patented discovery.
A possible eventual benefit to the San of between R8-million and R12-million was estimated when their agreement with the CSIR was signed in March.
Before Pfizer’s withdrawal, the San were expected to receive a second payment within the next year.
According to a report in the British newspaper Independent, Pfizer had been preparing to launch a final stage of human trials on P57 in the autumn. However, the company had been cutting back work on natural medicines in the wake of its merger with Pharmacia.
P57 is now in its third year of clinical development, a process which usually takes between seven and 10 years. – Sapa