The Hindu Business Line : Advinus in pact with Genzyme, MMV to develop malaria drugs

The collaboration will focus on accelerating current R&D efforts by identifying new malaria-fighting molecules from early-stage screening to the first steps of pre-clinical assessment.

Our Bureau

Bangalore, Aug 27 Advinus Therapeutics Ltd, the Tata group-promoted life sciences R&D company, has announced a tie-up to develop new anti-malaria drug molecules and therapies with Genzyme Corp and Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV), a not-for-profit virtual R&D organisation.

Advinus will join an ongoing project that is trying to develop new, improved treatments for specific patient groups vulnerable to malaria, a release said, without giving financial details.

The collaboration will focus on accelerating current R&D efforts by identifying new malaria-fighting molecules from early-stage screening to the first steps of pre-clinical assessment.

It will also work at therapies that will tackle drug resistance that current anti-malarial treatments face.

“Among the kinds of compounds to be optimised, with the help of Advinus, are those active against key target enzymes that are essential for the survival of the malaria parasite,” the Bangalore-based Advinus said.

The MMV-Genzyme partnership includes the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. The team has begun to identify promising lead candidates from among its many compound libraries.

Anti-malaria programme

Started in 1999, MMV manages the largest portfolio of 40 anti-malarial projects in collaboration with over 100 pharmaceutical, academic, and endemic-country partners. Nine new classes of compounds are in the discovery phase.

Five are in clinical development, three are artemisinin combination therapies (ACTs), which are expected to go commercial between 2008 and 2010.

The programme is one of the few such targeted at neglected third-world diseases. Between 1975 and 1999, only four anti-malarials were said to have been developed out of the nearly 1,400 new drugs developed worldwide.

Dr Chris Hentschel, President and CEO of MMV, said, “Malaria kills 1-2 million people annually, with the majority of victims being children under five and pregnant women. New anti-malarial agents are urgently needed to stop this. The pipeline of new molecules that are effective against malaria must be made more robust so that we can develop the next generation of powerful treatments.”

Dr Rashmi Barbhaiya, CEO of Advinus, said, “This collaboration once again confirms the commitment of Advinus and the Tata group to develop medicines for neglected diseases. India today is one of the few countries in the world that has not only the disease burden, but also the capability to research and develop new therapies for these diseases.”

The $3.8-billion Nasdaq-listed Genzyme started its operations in India last year.

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