Scant funds, rare outbreaks leave Ebola drug pipeline slim

London - By Kate Kelland, Health and Science Correspondent LONDON, March 27 (Reuters) - Almost 40 years after the Ebola virus was identified in humans by scientists in a microbiology laboratory in Belgium, pharmaceutical researchers have yet to develop an effective drug or vaccine to fight it. But there is also little incentive for major pharmaceutical companies to invest in medical solutions when there is little chance of a return. "We can do basic research quite cheaply, but when you move from that to trying to develop drugs and vaccines, you get into the need for clinical trials and they are very costly - which is where you would normally start to engage with Big Pharma," said Jonathan Ball, a professor of molecular virology at Britain's University of Nottingham. "And clearly they are not going to invest unless there is likely to be some sort of decent return." Discovered in 1976 after an outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo, then Zaire, Ebola causes a severe haemorrhagic fever where victims suffer vomiting, diarrhoea and both internal and external bleeding.



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