Biotech nonprofit to make meds with donated IP

The Connecticut biotech group CURE has set up a nonprofit subsidiary and staffed it with a couple of experienced R&D specialists out to turn the drug development world's cast-offs into low-cost therapies. Peter Farina and Denice Spero, two Boehringer Ingelheim vets, want biopharma companies to donate research and patents that were relegated to the back shelf for economic reasons. A host of therapies for ring fever, malaria, tuberculosis and more could be available at low cost.

Right now it's just two people with a dream to better the world. But Farina and Spero--operating as Developing World Cures--are hoping to pattern their work on The Institute for OneWorld Health in San Francisco, a nonprofit which has been developing a variety of new therapies--in part with more than $100 million in funds from the Gates Foundation.

- read the report [1] from the Hartford Courant

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