CARDIOVASCULAR JOURNAL OF AFRICA • Volume 25, No 1, January/February 2014
40
AFRICA
Industry News
AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals enables scientific innovation
Critically aware of the need for fund-
ing that will develop research capacity
and contribute to academic advancement
in South Africa, ethical pharmaceutical
company, AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals,
has set up a not-for-profit trust for the
disbursement of medical research fund-
ing. The company will award R1.5
million a year for three years for academ-
ic research; high-level, non-intervention-
al studies including doctoral and post-
doctoral work that will generate signifi-
cant data currently not available.
The funding will be distributed to quali-
fying researchers through the AstraZeneca
Research Trust, the independent body set
up to administer the allocation of the
funds. Managed by a scientific steering
committee, six highly respected academ-
ics from various institutions around the
country have been appointed to screen,
review and ultimately, with full autonomy,
decide on the apportionment of the grant
funding. AstraZeneca will have no influ-
ence or participate in any decisions made
regarding the fund allocation. This will be
solely at the discretion of the academics
administering the disbursements.
Chairman of the AstraZeneca Research
Trust, Prof Reid Ally says: ‘We have been
given carte blanche to decide which propos-
als will receive funding and we can look at
non-communicable diseases… to document
firstly how frequent the disease is, and then
look at what we can do to change what is
happening to us; whether this is diet related,
environmental or genetic.’
AstraZeneca company president, South
Africa and sub-Saharan Africa, Karl
Friberg says, ‘Through the AstraZeneca
Research Trust we will address the chal-
lenge of realising the full potential of
Africa, while at the same time continuing
to position AstraZeneca as a company
that co-creates with local communities
and academia, to meet the huge unmet
need among African patients.’
As a global ethical company,
AstraZeneca invests over US$4 billion
each year in research and development
and its focus is on the development of
prescription medicines in seven thera-
peutic areas. According to Friberg, after
several tough years, the company has a
strong pipeline again, with over 12 new
chemical entities in phase-three projects.
‘In the spirit of the project, and
committed to unprejudiced research find-
ings, we have made no attempt to limit the
research to the therapeutic areas in which
we are operational. We are encouraging
the generation of much-needed epidemio-
logical data on non-communicable and
other diseases, data we expect will come
from high-level studies’, says Friberg.
‘The global healthcare landscape is
changing at a rapid pace and in SouthAfrica
and the African continent we are sitting on
a veritable non-communicable disease time
bomb. Cardiovascular diseases, diabetes,
obesity, metabolic syndrome and smoking-
related illnesses are becoming increasingly
prevalent and are the scourge of Africa.
The continent is ill equipped to fight these
modern-day illnesses; it does not have the
empirical data to properly manage and treat
these potentially life-threatening diseases’,
says Friberg.
The pharmaceutical industry has
not traditionally invested in this area of
research, with funding customarily being
allocated to the development of compounds
and chemical entities. With extensive
investment into research on HIV infection
and TB, there has been little investment
and focus on non-communicable diseases.
‘Without current, accurate data, we
have no line of sight to the extent of the
problem, or how to manage it. There are
virtually no data on black females in even
the most basic disease areas. We want to
change this and be part of the data-gener-
ation process. Even if we cannot use it
directly as a company, we want to be part
of the solution’, says Friberg. ‘We hope
our grants will help us meet a huge area of
unmet need, ensuring the reprioritisation
of healthcare initiatives and reshaping the
landscape as we know it.’
Submissions for grant funding can
be made during the course of 2014 but
all applications for 2014 funding must
be received by the Trust by the end of
the first quarter of 2014. A six-week
review period will be allocated for the
scientific steering committee to make the
necessary decisions. Grant awards will
be announced and awarded in May 2014.
This initiative is supported unconditionally by
AstraZeneca. Further information can be found
at:
Karl Friberg, AstraZeneca company
president, South Africa and sub-Saha-
ran Africa.
Prof Adam Habib, vice chancellor,
University of Witwatersrand.
