UTech scientisit Dr Sarafadeen Adebayo (Photos: Ross Sheil)

Dr Sarafadeen Adebayo, a scientist at the University of Technology (UTech), has discovered that breadfruit can improve the production of the drug paracetamol - a discovery that could create valuable jobs in rural Jamaica growing, harvesting and producing a starch extract from the plant.

But before that can happen, Parliament will need to pass a yet-to-be-tabled amendment to the Patent Act that will extend protection beyond Jamaica's borders, a provision absent from the current legislation which passed in 1857 was changed once in 1962 to adjust monetary measurements from pounds to dollars post-Independence. The draft amendment is waiting to be tabled in Parliament.

Passing the legislation will make Jamaica compliant with the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), which was agreed in 1994.

Until then, the research work of scientists, like Adebayo,cannot gain adequate protection under the local patent system. Instead, they must continue to register in countries such as the United States, which is already TRIPS-compliant.

But since Adebayo and UTech cannot yet afford the costly and lengthy process of applying for a US patent, he must still wait before he can protect the work he began in 1996 back in his native Nigeria. Then, at the Obafemi Awolowo University, his faculty were producing drugs but had a goal to substitute native raw materials for imported ingredients and minimise costs. He published his initial findings two years later.

Paracetamol pills made using breadfruit produced at the University of Technology (UTech).

Adebayo found that breadfruit starch can perform more efficiently as the binder ingredient and disintegrant in the drug paracetamol than cornstarch. Cornstarch is the current ingredient used in manufacturing the drug, but with current concerns over food scarcity - especially diverting corn harvest to biofuel production - breadfruit could become an attractive alternative, believes the Nigerian scientist. he came to Jamaica six years ago and now serves as the head the UTech School of Pharmacy and health Science.

"If you observe that it is something that is not consumed by the general populace, it has its niché but it's not like wheat - which is consumed on a much wider basis. Breadfruit, presently is consumed mostly in rural communities and incidentally those would be the people who could benefit from it should the starch production be able to start. They would be the growers and they could even be the people involved in production," he told Business Observer.

"About 88 per cent of starch that they produce in China is exported to the United States and now with the advent of biofuel, cornstarch is the main ingredient so there is going to be a push for starch in the market and there is a push to produce it in developing countries from non-food sources, because there will come a time when this vital ingredient will be very hard to source."

Adebayo cited Vietnam, which produces starch from cassava, as another developing country that has successfully entered the market.

Now in Jamaica, he is collaborating with engineers who are building the necessary equipment to produce the starch on a commercial basis.

Interest from the international pharmaceutical industry has been forthcoming, said Adebayo. However, he is reluctant to cede control over the project especially prior to a patent application being filed.
He has already produced rough versions of breadfruit-paracetamol in pill form with two local companies interested in producing the breadfruit starch. Meanwhile, scientists at the Northern Caribbean University (NCU) in Mandeville are trying to raise $10 million as funding for a separate breadfruit commercialisation project, which they believe will boost the island's food security and earn foreign exchange. According to the NCU team, breadfruit has greater nutritional value than cassava.
Jamaica has only recently grown vigilant over intellectual property-rights issues, with lobbying efforts by groups such as the Jamaica Anti-Piracy Alliance (JAPA).

"I don't think that we can blame the government because we are not a big industrial country with people lobbying for patent legislation - and we have had no defined research culture - but now it's of course necessary having signed up to TRIPS," said Jason Wong Sam, patent administrator at the Jamaica Intellectual Property Office (JIPO).

The bulk of inquiries made to JIPO concerning pharmaceutical patents currently come from overseas from companies keen to protect their drugs against generic versions sold on the local market, said Wong-Sam.

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