Progen R&D director leaves for medical frontiers

Progen's vice president of R&D, Robert Don, is leaving the company to take up the "job of a lifetime" developing drugs for neglected diseases that affect developing countries in Africa, Asia and the Americas.

The position, based in Geneva, is at the Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative (DNDi), a collaboration between the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation from Brazil, the Indian Council for Medical Research, the Kenya Medical Research Institute, the Ministry of Health of Malaysia, France's Pasteur Institute, Medecins sans Frontieres (MSF), and the UNDP/World Bank/WHO's Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases (TDR).

"The concept is to be a virtual pharmaceutical company to make medicines to diseases that wouldn't be of interest to real pharmaceutical companies," Don told Australian Biotechnology News.

Don, who has been completing studies in public health through the London School of Public Health, said the job entails managing a portfolio of nine programs ranging from discovery research to Phase III clinical studies, with a focus on three diseases -- sleeping sickness, visceral leishmaniasis and Chagas disease, also known as American trypanosomiasis. DNDi plans to double the number of programs in the portfolio by the end of the year.

While the diseases are not considered of any importance to developed countries -- rarely even affecting travellers -- they are re-emerging in the developing world due to the spread of HIV infection.

"These diseases fall right at the bottom of the scale -- they are just not of interest to pharmaceutical companies," he said.

The DNDi plans to use screening programs to discover new drugs as well to identify new uses for existing drugs. Don says his experience at Progen over the last decade has given him a thorough grounding in the drug discovery and development process as well as FDA-regulated clinical trials, which he said would be invaluable at DNDi.

Progen CEO Lewis Lee said that while he was sad to lose Don, he understood the attraction of the position.

"He's got an enviable job -- and Rob's had a passion for third world diseases, so it wasn't a surprise," Lee said.