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Swathi Padmanabhan: HPV in India and Developing Countries

Sanford student studies commercial barriers to vaccine

After taking every challenging science course available during high school, Sanford School senior Swathi Padmanabhan said, "I was burnt out on science -- " When she got to Duke, she was thinking about law school and a major in public policy.

 

Yet her honors thesis "The Impact of Intellectual Property, University Licensing Practices, and Technology Transfer on Regional Manufacturing of and Access to the HPV Vaccine in Resource-Poor Regions" combines all three interests in one long-range project that began during her freshman year. 

 

Padmanabhan said her parents encouraged her to "look outside her comfort zone, to try something different." She decided to take a FOCUS program on The Genome Revolution, which offered a combination of classes on the topic in biology, ethics and policy. She studied with Robert Cook-Deegan, research professor of public policy and director of the Center for Genome Ethics, Law and Policy (GELP), who became her adviser for her honors thesis.

 

The HPV vaccine is effective in preventing cervical cancer, but Merck and Co. and GlaxoSmithKline hold patents on the vaccine and some of the underlying development technologies. This makes the cost of manufacturing the vaccine prohibitive in developing countries.

 

Vaccine manufacturing companies are emerging in developing countries, especially in India, that are creating their own manufacturing methods and have the potential to produce lower-cost vaccines. India has 25 percent of the world's cervical cancer cases, so broad distribution of the HPV vaccine could have a tremendous public health impact there. Universities also play a large role in development of the intellectual property that underlies many new drugs and technologies. The availability of their research and intellectual property licenses influence which methods and drugs are developed. 

 

To assess the impact of patents on research and production in developing countries, she traveled to Hyderabad, India, in December 2007 to visit three vaccine manufacturers: the Serum Institute of India, Bharat Biotech and Indian Immunologicals.

 

"They were all very open to meeting with me, even though I was an undergraduate," she said. She talked with scientists and the heads of research and development. The trip was funded through an undergraduate research grant with support from the Sanford School, the FOCUS program and the Baldwin Scholars program.

 

Padmanabhan decided to examine the manufacturing of rotavirus and Hepatitis B vaccines in India as possible models for HPV licensing and manufacturing. She revisited the three Hyderabad companies in the summer of 2009 as part of her research.

 

"I was surprised that one scientist asked me about what patents were filed in India," she said. Apparently, some of this information was easier for her to find than it was for the local scientists. She shared her data with every company she dealt with in India.

 

Regional manufacturers can produce high-quality vaccines similar to the expensive products produced by Western companies, Padmanabhan said. However, these Western companies are increasing their patent filings on enabling technologies in India, so there is a need for policy changes to address barriers to access for these vaccines.

After graduation, Padmanabhan intends to go to law school to study intellectual property and to earn a master's in public health. "I'll be able to bring more of a science focus to my law practice," she said.