A tribe of bushmen from the Kalahari, in southern Africa, may be about to get fat out of an anti-obesity drug in development at British drugs group Phytopharm.
The Khomani people, part of the San, or bushmen of southern Africa, have for thousands of years eaten slices of a six-foot cactus to stave of hunger on hunting trips. Now they claim that their traditional knowledge of the hidden properties of the Hoodia cactus is being exploited.
The San lodged a claim for compensation and a legal settlement is expected to award them royalties on any future sales of the drug, which if it proves effective and safe, could become a blockbuster treatment for the overweight.
South Africa's Council for Scientific and Industrial research isolated the main active ingredient of the plant and signed the commercial rights to Phytopharm four years ago.
The company patented a drug made from the cactus extract and licensed it to US pharmaceutical group Pfizer -- the company that gave the world Viagra -- in a deal worth US$29 million in license payments.
The legal claim by the San challenged the right of the CSIR and the drug industry to profit at their expense. Yesterday a spokesman for the CSIR confirmed there would a "benefit sharing" deal, probably agreed within the month.
The San's share is likely to be a small percentage of the royalty paid by Phytopharm to the CSIR.
Obesity is a vast problem in developed countries with one in four adults classified as overweight. An effective drug would be a multi-billion dollar earner.
Phytopharm, which is establishing plantations to grow Hoodia and working on synthetic alternatives, will not be affected, as the San will be paid out of the CSIR's royalties.
Phytopharm develops treatments by collecting anecdotes about natural remedies and producing them commercially. It is working on a treatment for canine arthritis made from the curry plant and one for Alzheimer's based on a secret Asian root.
A treatment for male baldness made from Mediterranean lilies was abandoned as ineffective.
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