Glaxo Tries a Linux Approach

A decade ago, the Linux operating system helped spark a revolution in how software is developed. A move by GlaxoSmithKline PLC could test how well similar open-source principles work for developing new drugs. The pharmaceutical giant last week opened to the public the designs behind 13,500 chemical compounds that it said may be capable of inhibiting the parasite that causes malaria.

Glaxo and others hope that sharing information and working together will lead scientists to come up with a drug for treating the mosquito-borne disease faster than the company could on its own. Other researchers "may look at these structures in quite a different way and see something that we don't," said Nick Cammack, head of Glaxo's Medicines Development Campus in Spain.

The move is one of the largest experiments yet by the pharmaceutical industry to apply techniques of open-source development to drug discovery, based on the idea that collaboration by volunteers will create products that aren't owned by a single company.