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SANOFI

French firm signals ‘new era’ in malaria fight

French pharmaceutical giant Sanofi has signalled the start of a "new era" in the fight against malaria by announcing the development of a new form of anti-malaria drug, which will be shipped to Africa in the coming months.

Published: 13 August 2014 08:39 CEST
French firm signals 'new era' in malaria fight
Frencg drugs giant Sanofi has signalled a new era in fight against malaria. Photo: CDC/Flickr

French pharmaceutical giant Sanofi announced on Tuesday the delivery of the first anti-malaria drugs using a semi-synthetic version of their key ingredient to millions of patients in Africa.

Sanofi said that the development of semi-synthetic artemisinin – the weapon of choise against malaria – signalled a "new era" in the fight against the mosquito-borne disease.

Artemisinin is normally derived from a plant called sweet wormwood, but the weather can affect harvests of the plant, causing shortages and price spikes.

The drugmaker said it had been able to make 1.7 million treatments with the semi-synthetic alternative, which will be shipped to Burkina Faso, Burundi, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Liberia, Niger, and Nigeria in the coming months.

The World Health Organization gave the use of semi-synthetic artemisinin in malaria products the green light in May last year.

Sanofi said that "by complementing botanically-derived supplies, the new option can widen access to treatment for millions sickened by malaria every year."

According to the WHO's last malaria report, published last December, the disease killed 627,000 people in 2012, mainly children in Africa, with an estimated 207 million cases worldwide.

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NOVARTIS

Switzerland’s Novartis to inject $100 million into malaria drug research

Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis on Tuesday announced $100 million of funding over the next five years for research into new treatments for malaria, a mosquito-borne disease with a devastating impact that killed 445,000 people in 2016.

Published: 17 April 2018 11:34 CEST
Switzerland's Novartis to inject $100 million into malaria drug research
A health worker and a mother try to get down the fever of a boy with malaria in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2017. Photo: AFP

There were some 216 million cases of malaria worldwide in 2016, an increase of five million from the year before, according to the World Health Organization.

Around 90 percent of the 445,000 of malaria-related deaths occurred in Africa, but people in southeast Asia, the eastern Mediterranean, the western Pacific and the Americas are also considered at risk.

In a bid to redress the disproportionate burden carried by African countries, Novartis said it would establish a strategy aimed at ensuring equitable pricing.

In a statement, the company also said it would “further help expand access” to treatment for children with malaria.

Novartis's announcement came as Senegal hosted a pan-African conference this week on the fight against malaria.

Deaths from malaria dropped by over 60 percent from 2000 to 2015, but because of growing resistance to available treatments and insecticides, there is a risk that the progress made so far may be slowed.

“Resistance to treatment presents the biggest threat to the incredible progress that has been made in the fight against malaria in the past 20 years,” Novartis CEO Vas Narasimhan said.

“We cannot afford to wait; this is why we are committing to advance the research and development of next-generation treatments,” he added.