PAMAfrica receives US$49mn to fight drug resistant malaria
PAMAfrica - a consortium led by Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV) - will receive US$49mn over the next five years to invest in antimalarials.
The PAMAfrica consortium, aims to bring together global medical companies and academic institutes, to be a part of a not-for-profit product development partnership, to develop new medicines for both severe and uncomplicated malaria.
“Malaria continues needlessly to take 405,000 lives a year and must remain a global and national priority in endemic countries,” commented Dr Michael Makanga, Executive Director of EDCTP, “We hope our funding for PAMAfrica will contribute to the development of successful new treatments that will support malaria eradication, while supporting the development of African research capacity.”
Over the next five years, PAMAfrica will see a total investment of US$49mn from both European and African organisations including EDCTP, MMV and Novartis.
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The developments will be split into three research projects, the first being a new malaria treatment for babies under 5kg, followed by a new fast-acting medicine for severe malaria and a new combination medicine to treat drug-resistant uncomplicated malaria.
“All three of these research projects address areas of urgent need in malaria treatment. Antimalarial drug resistance, originally seen in Southeast Asia, is being reported in Africa and may threaten current treatments. It is important to have new therapies that are active against this emerging threat of resistance. The work on newborn infants and in severe malaria is groundbreaking in bringing medicines to this neglected group. Thanks to this critical support from EDCTP we are not only able to bring together the necessary African and European expertise to conduct these projects to address unmet needs, but in doing so, we are also able to support the training and development of the next-generation of leaders in clinical malaria research in Africa,” commented Dr Timothy Wells, Chief Scientific Officer of MMV and the coordinator of the PAMAfrica group.
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