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AstraZeneca has concluded research agreements with the South African firm iThemba, the University of Dundee and the University of California at San Francisco through WIPO’s “RE:Search” program. A WIPO press release has announced that agreements will enhance the “study novel treatments for Chagas disease, sleeping sickness, schistosomiasis (snail fever), and tuberculosis.”

Under the terms of WIPO Re:Search, organizations agree to make “available intellectual property assets (such as pharmaceutical compounds, drug discovery technologies, regulatory data, and know-how), to qualified researchers anywhere in the world on a royalty-free basis, provided the research is focused on neglected tropical diseases, malaria, and tuberculosis. Any products resulting from this research will also be royalty-free for sales in least developed countries (LDCs).”

When the initiative was announced in October 2011 , the initiative was greeted cautiously, as many observers said that the terms could be improved to reach more people in need. As reported by IP-Watch at the time, a Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative statement recommended that the initiative “take a step further in terms of access, especially by including not only the least developed countries but all neglected disease-endemic countries.”   Médecins Sans Frontières warned that “many patients affected by NTDs are not in least developed countries. In the Americas, for example, Chagas disease affects 21 countries, but the Consortium will only provide royalty-free licences for Haiti, where Chagas is not endemic.”