Open Source Drug Discovery (OSDD) is a Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, India (CSIR)-led Team India Consortium with global participation[1][2][3][4][5] offering a collaborative drug discovery platform for neglected tropical diseases like leishmaniasis, which draw limited attention of research-based pharmaceutical enterprises.
[1][5][6][7][8] This program has a global community with over 7500 participants from 130 countries comprising researchers, academia, students, industries, educational institutions and so on.
[10] OSDD functions by bringing together experts from diverse backgrounds to focus on discovering and developing affordable drugs for tropical infections.
[13] The project motto is “Affordable healthcare for all” and makes use of open source philosophy, crowd –sourcing concepts and a collaborative research model,[14] capitalizing on web based tools to fuel innovation and discover novel therapies.
[13][15] All the data and resources generated by the community are openly shared through a web based portal called Sysborg 2.0 specifically designed for this purpose[5][16][17] The project has a healthcare model that blends together the policies of patenting and open source research, aiming to make novel drugs available as generic drugs,[18] without Intellectual Property restrictions, and thus ensure affordability and accessibility.
Prof.Samir K. Brahmachari, Former Director General of CSIR is the "Chief Mentor" of the Open Source Drug Discovery Project.
M. Vijayan, President of the Gyan Bindu Academy , V. M. Katoch, Director General of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), and N.K.