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Two very positive announcements were made last week by Andrew Witty, chief executive of Galxo SmithKline. The first covers the price of medicines in developing nations which he said Glaxo would cap at no more than 25% of the price in the developed world. The second interesting point was the call to establish a patent pool for diseases, such as malaria and cholera, which affect developing nations. Such diseases are generally not profitable for large pharma companies and thus get very little research funding. This patent pool, to which Mr. Witty is calling other pharma companies to make patent contributions also, would make it easier for third party researchers and non-profit organizations such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (see video below) to develop novel treatments. Reuters quotes Mr. Witty as saying “Society expects us to do more in addressing these issues. To be frank, I agree. We have the capacity to do more and we can do more.” Wow, it looks like big pharma is slowly realizing the fact that they’re into public healthcare and not just profit - now if only the shareholders and the stock market would find it in them to come to the same realization. The important question for them is how much this will reduce Glaxo’s profit, if at all ? This is a question we haven’t seen asked in either the Reuters or the otherwise excellent Guardian article.