Global Health (Research and Development)

Debate between Andrew George and Alan Duncan

Tuesday 8th July 2014 Westminster Hall

[The Minister of State, Department for International Development (Mr Alan Duncan)]

I thank the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George) for securing this important debate—indeed, I thank all those who have contributed this afternoon. Thanks to the right hon. Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Frank Dobson), it looks as if the Chilcot inquiry will have to make a study of infected chickens.

I also thank and commend the hon. Member for St Ives, and the rest of the all-party group on global tuberculosis, for the publication of a thorough report. We all appreciate the group’s tireless work in keeping our collective focus on global health—particularly research and development, which we are discussing today. As I am sure the group will appreciate, as the report was made available to us only last night, I have not had a chance to read it in detail. However, an initial scan shows that there is much in it that we welcome.

The report seeks to answer two fundamental questions: why are diseases of the global poor so badly neglected in research efforts, and what potential solutions are available to unlock the puzzle? Following a cursory reading, I am delighted to say that the Department for International Development is widely praised for our commitment to research and development in global health, and I am also pleased to learn that our willingness to provide flexible and untied support is particularly valued. The Department will consider the report and its recommendations during the next few weeks. However, let me now say just a few words about how DFID’s approach to research and development will proceed more broadly.

In the last two decades, tremendous progress has been made in improving the health, and preventing the deaths, of those living in poverty around the world, particularly women and children. For instance, between 1990 and 2011 the mortality rate among children under five fell from 84 deaths to 53 deaths per 1,000 live births, which is a very positive and encouraging statistic. In fact, as was recently reported in The Economist, it is an astonishing result.

Africa is currently seeing some of the fastest falls in child mortality ever seen anywhere, and one of the ways in which the UK has contributed is through its outstanding research. UK Government funding and UK scientists have contributed to the development of long-lasting, insecticide-treated bed nets, which were mentioned a moment ago, and new diagnostic tests and drugs for malaria. However, the progress has not been evenly spread; more than 7 million women and children still die every year, many of them during pregnancy and birth, and the great majority from easily treatable or preventable conditions.

We need to do three things in our research for health: to develop new technologies, such as drugs, vaccines and diagnostic tests; to test them through trials; and to keep abreast of growing medical challenges such as drug resistance, which has been mentioned this afternoon. I assure the House, including all Members here today, that DFID is funding research in all those areas.

Let me highlight a few examples of what we have been doing recently. The first area of our work is about developing new technology. We know what the problem is, but we lack the technology sometimes required to fix it, so research is required to create innovative solutions. For instance, DFID support has helped the Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics to develop GeneXpert, which my hon. Friend the Member for South Derbyshire (Heather Wheeler) mentioned earlier. GeneXpert is a new diagnostic test for tuberculosis that gives fast and accurate results. She said the results come within two hours; I might say within four hours—if we split the difference, the test is quick and that is what matters. Importantly, it also identifies drug resistance. The test is revolutionising the care and treatment of those suffering from this appalling disease.

Another example is that DFID supported the drugs for neglected diseases initiative to develop a new safer drug for sleeping sickness—one of the world’s worst diseases. The old drug, implicitly referred to by the right hon. Member for Neath (Mr Hain), was highly toxic, killing around 5% of those treated. The new drug, which is now available in 90% of the places where sleeping sickness exists, is a better drug that reaches more people.

Both those examples also demonstrate the importance of securing private sector support through product development partnerships, which hon. Members mentioned. These partnerships act like virtual pharmaceutical companies, where a small, central group of staff co- ordinates the development of new drugs and technologies, drawing on the strengths of academia and industry. The UK is a leading investor in PDPs—with the Gates Foundation, for instance—and we continue to champion their role in global health research and development.

Let me turn to some questions that I spotted being put to me in a co-ordinated way. I have to say, in all honesty, that lifting our research expenditure up to 5% of our budget is unlikely within the competing claims of a tight resource allocation round for the next three years. If one added up the many requests made to us to meet certain percentages for various causes, one would soon find that they are close to, or perhaps even beyond, 100% of our total budget. We have to be honest and should not pretend that we can meet the 10% here and the 5% there, or the nought point this or that everywhere else. We will, within the 0.7% to which we do adhere, try to apportion our budgets rationally and openly.

I hear what was said about tax credits, but hon. Members will appreciate that those are primarily a matter for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the Treasury. On collective action, we agree that better co-ordination should almost invariably be welcomed and pursued.

The second area of our work concerns using research to test new ways of doing things, including through the use of clinical trials. Much of what is done in international development has not yet been properly tested by rigorous methods. The fact that many experts agree that an intervention should work does not necessarily mean that it will. Proper trials allow us to do new things, but they also allow us to call a halt to old, costly and sometimes dangerous things.

DFID helped fund research in Kenya recently on the treatment of children with severe infections, including malaria. While accepted medical wisdom suggested that one should rapidly increase fluids in children affected by these diseases, research showed that that course of treatment was actually detrimental to the health of the children and, in some cases, resulted in death.

Similarly, in Uganda, research has shown that the accepted practice of using expensive tests to monitor the progression of HIV in patients simply did not work. By stopping the tests, a third of the normal cost of treating someone with HIV can be saved, with no impact on mortality. That means that for the same amount of money, the Ugandan Government can effectively treat a third more people with HIV. That is all down to effective research. DFID is currently supporting more than 40 clinical trials under the joint global health trials initiative, in partnership with the Medical Research Council and the Wellcome Trust. We are funding new trials in TB, HIV and malaria, as well as other poverty-related neglected diseases.

There is a slight misconception that we do not fund UK research directly. We will fund the best research wherever it is located, through global, fair and open competition. However, as it happens, the largest proportion of DFID research contracts are won by UK institutions.

The Department is also breaking new ground in testing public health interventions in humanitarian crises—for example, through its partnership with the Wellcome Trust and Save the Children in the research for health in humanitarian crises project. This innovative partnership enables high quality health research to be carried out rapidly as acute emergencies unfold.

[Andrew George]

The Minister originally discounted the possibility of looking at the notional cap on research and development within DFID’s budget, but at the same time he has announced the doubling of economic development assistance to £1.8 billion. Given that we are talking about market failure, will he consider that budget as a route by which his Department can engage with the private sector, to enable further research and development that will achieve both the research and development gains and the economic development goals that his Department is seeking?

[Mr Duncan]

There is a lot that is constructive in what the hon. Gentleman has suggested. Whereas the money might not go into long-term research, there can certainly be work with private companies along the partnership lines that we already have, perhaps to extend activity in areas such as these. We are open-minded about the nature of the economic development activity that will emerge from this new approach—this refreshed emphasis—in private sector development, and I am pretty confident it does not rule out proposals such as the hon. Gentleman’s.