OK, so, just to be clear, if WCG comes up with a drug lead that is straight out of say the ZINC database, THAT compound CAN NOT be patented. BUT if a pharma company develops a drug that is chemically similar, THAT compound CAN be patented.

But if our work did result in finding a compound straight out of one of the databases, would it still be developed? And by who?

I guess if a drug is found that cures dengue or AIDS, someone will find a way to develop it - public domain or not.

EDIT - Thanks LH - your post went up while I was writing this.

That's a good point. I wasn't sure how different a compound had to be from another to be worthy of a patent. I don't know much about chemistry, but I know that you modify a drug in ways that don't change it's biological activity. That was a big issue maybe 20 years ago when basement chemists were coming up with "designer" drugs that skirted the controlled substances laws. I wasn't sure if in a patent law setting they looked for different biological activity or just a different chemical composition. I guess it must be something in between.

I imagine the laboratories/institutes providing the computational work units are going to take the leads and produce them and do in vivo testing, or have arranged for other labs to do it. Then the institutes may have grants to pursue clinical testing. Ultimately a drug company has to actually produce and distribute the drug. Hopefully enough of the work will be done by government grants and WCG to keep it generic. However, since the results will be publicly available and the pharma companies have tons of money and there will be no patents the drug companies may take the lead list and alter the molecules to find compounds not tested that may have biologically activity. This is a common practice that some drug companies do to others. However, every single molecule proposed from our data should be public domain, and even if they do make some other molecule, it may not be as effective, and a safe generic from our data may still be available. Lastly, even if our data yields a drug that is safest and most effective, there is a possibility that the drug companies may be able to patient the method of synthesizing it if it is not obvious and easy. So thats a lot of ifs, and I am by no means an expert, but thats my view of the situation as a medicinal chemist.