Interest Drops in Rainforest Remedies

Subject: Interest Drops in Rainforest Remedies
Date: Fri, 14 Jul 2000 09:02:52 -0400
From: Biodiversity Action Network <bionet@igc.org>

Health24News article
Volume 1, Issue 49 Friday, July 7, 2000

----------------------------------------------------------------------Interest

Drops in Rainforest Remedies

By Tanya O'Connor, Health24News Staff Writer

WASHINGTON, D.C. (H24N, July 5, 2 p.m. EDT)--Though the world's
rainforests have long held the promise of producing medicinal miracles,
few pharmaceutical companies are still willing to go through the complex

processes involved in discovering, developing and testing the drugs that

may be found there.

Intellectual property rights issues, large capital needs, a lengthy
approval process and the lucrative prospects for bioengineering have all

contributed to the drug companies' exodus from the forest, despite the
huge contributions plant-based remedies have made to modern medicine
over the last three decades.

Although the United States has yet to ratify the Convention on
Biological Diversity ratified by 100 other countries, the treaty set
into motion the idea that indigenous peoples are the rightful owners of
traditional knowledge and the medicinal plant applications of such
knowledge. Before 1992, intellectual property rights and accompanying
contractual privileges and profit-sharing had never been extended to the

indigenous peoples living in the depths of the rainforests.

When Madagascar spiritual herbalists, called shamans, led Eli Lilly
Pharmaceuticals to the rosy periwinkle plant (Catharanthus roseus) in
1958 for the treatment of Hodgkin's disease (a type of lymph cancer) and

childhood leukemia, the company made enormous profits -- approximately
$100 million every year for the two drugs. The company was subsequently
criticized for denying both the country of Madagascar and the shamans
who led them to the plants any share in the profits.

Two alkaloids from the plant, vinblastine and vincristine, are
responsible for the remarkable 80 and 90 percent remission rate for the
diseases, respectively.

After 1992, laws concerning intellectual property rights governed
pharmaceutical companies, and the companies have spent less time
exploiting the rainforest.

Katy Moran, anthropologist and executive director of the Healing Forest
Conservancy, says that since the treaty was put in place, no
pharmaceutical products from rainforest discoveries have been
commercialized for additional reasons. "The costs are too prohibitive,"
Moran said. "It takes 10 to 15 years and $300 million--that's a lot of
money to spend on a high-risk venture."

"There have been changes brought about by the Convention on Biological
Diversity. These biological resources no longer belong to humankind,"
Moran said. "Before the treaty there were never royalties or
benefit-sharing discussed with the undeveloped countries. Now they are
seen as the property of the indigenous country."

Steven King, Ph.D., senior vice president for Ethnobotany and
Conservation for Shaman Botanicals, agrees. "Large companies don't want
to share the profits with countries and cultures, and they don't want to

negotiate these contracts with countries. They want complete control
over the process," King said.

Shaman Pharmaceuticals, one of the few companies that began its
rainforest venture after the convention was signed, abandoned its
multimillion-dollar effort to bring to market an array of promising new
drugs from the rainforest. Though previously promised a fast-track
approval process by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Shaman
Pharmaceuticals says it was informed by the FDA at the 11th hour that a
duplicate phase III clinical trial--which is required for drugs not
slated for fast-track approval--would be necessary. Further testing
would have cost the pharmaceutical company tens of millions of dollars.

The company says it had developed promising new drugs for the treatment
of viral respiratory infections, herpes and AIDS-related chronic
diarrhea.

Other large companies that have continued the search for rainforest
remedies include Bristol-Myers Squibb, Merck, American Cyanamid and
Monsanto (Searle).

Jiselle Tamayo, technical coordinator for the Bioprospecting Program at
The Instituto Nacional de Biodiversidad (INBio), a non-profit
organization that works with the Costa Rican Ministry of Environment to
manage natural drug discovery in Costa Rica's rainforests, says that she

has noticed a significant decrease in interest from pharmaceutical
companies since the early 1990s.

"Today we are working with two pharmaceutical companies, but in 1991
there were 5."

Tamayo explains that with newer types of technology available in drug
development, companies are less interested in bioprospecting (the search

for plant-based remedies using indigenous knowledge), which demands a
lot of time and money.

While some companies have given up their dreams of creating a forest
pharmacy for financial reasons, others are turning in their tropical
survival gear for gene-splicing equipment, seeking greater financial
security through the promise of biotechnology.

"The pharmaceutical companies are not stepping up to the plate. Many of
them see their future in genetic engineering as opposed to plant-based
medicines," said Randy Hayes, executive director of Rainforest Action
Network.

Moran sympathizes. "I'm disheartened because I think we're losing the
opportunity to save biological species as well as rainforest cultures.
Bioprospecting offered opportunities to conserve both," she said.

Despite the loss of interest from big companies, Moran says that
botanicals--herbs that are sold as dietary supplements--are going to be
an important way to ensure the continued exploration of rainforest
medicines. "Although the profits are not as big, there is a surge of
interest in the use of botanical medicines," she said.

Because Shaman Pharmaceuticals was millions of dollars short of
complying with FDA recommendations, the plant-based remedies, under the
name of Shaman Botanicals, are now being marketed as dietary
supplements, which aren't subject to the same rigorous testing and
approval processes. Other companies too have followed suit in developing

herbal products from rainforest plant medicinals.

Herbs from the rainforest now being sold as dietary supplements include:

Lapacho, also known as Pau D'arco (Tabebuia avellandedae, and T.
impetiginosa), used for the treatment of cancer, especially Leukemia,
infections and for pain relief; Passionflower (Passiflora incarnata),
used to reduce anxiety and tension; Cat's Claw, also known as Una de
Gato (Uncaria tomentosa), claimed to be a possible remedy for cancer and

AIDS; and Boldo (Pneumus boldus), used for liver and gallstone problems.


Moran notes that with current rates of destruction, rainforest
medicinals won't even be available for indigenous use.

"I think that too often we in the U.S. talk about enlarging the Western
pharmacopoeia and we forget that two-thirds of the world depend on
plants as their primary source of medicine. It would be a huge
catastrophe if these resources aren't conserved. What will they do for
their medicine? They're so important to such a large number of people."

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