Healthcare player Zydus Cadila (Cadila Healthcare Ltd) on Friday announced a collaboration with Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV) to develop the investigational antimalarial compound, MMV674253.

Zydus will lead the development of the novel compound and MMV will provide support including scientific expertise and access to tools in the field of malaria drug development and delivery, a company statement said here.

The aim of the collaboration is to provide an effective alternative to the current front-line antimalarial drugs for the treatment of uncomplicated P. falciparum malaria, artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs), which are under threat of resistance.

Malaria continues to place a heavy burden on the world. The WHO estimated that in 2015, 214 million malaria cases and 438,000 malaria deaths occurred worldwide. Yet, the rapid development and spread of antimalarial drug resistance threatens this global progress.

To date, parasite resistance to artemisinin has been detected in five countries of the Greater Mekong Sub-region namely, Cambodia, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam.

“Malaria is a major global health risk and its menace has only worsened with the problem of artemisinin-resistance. By collaborating with Medicines for Malaria Venture in this initiative, we hope to usher in a step change in the treatment of this deadly disease," said Pankaj R. Patel, Chairman and Managing Director, Zydus.

“We discovered this promising candidate in collaboration with AstraZeneca, India, and look forward to co-developing the compound with Zydus. Given the imminent threat of resistance, this novel compound, which kills parasites rapidly with a novel mechanism of action, could be one of the critical alternatives to current therapies the world urgently needs if we are to ultimately defeat malaria," said Timothy Wells, Chief Scientific Officer at MMV.

Related Topics
comment COMMENT NOW