Open Source for Neglected Diseases: Challenges and Opportunities

Open source approaches have had remarkable success in creating high-quality and low-cost software, and enabling mass collaboration online; they have been responsible for much of the technology that powers the Internet.

This landscaping paper discusses open source approaches for R&D for neglected diseases, and their potential to lower costs and R&D time frames, increase collaboration, and build a knowledge commons. The paper describes existing initiatives and debates, and suggests how readers and the global health community might better make use of open source approaches.

After setting the stage, we consider what initiatives have actually applied open source for neglected disease research, and how. We discuss several significant applications partially or wholly utilizing the open source approach, like India’s Open Source Drug Discovery project, Cambia’s Patent Lens and Initiative for Open Innovation, Collaborative Drug Discovery, and TDRTargets. 

While most have demonstrated potential, hard evidence of impact appears to be limited thus far.