Breakthroughs Blog: Malaria

Interested in more global health innovation news? Every week GHTC scours media reports worldwide to deliver essential global health R&D news and content to your inbox. Sign up now to receive our weekly R&D News Roundup email.On Thursday, AstraZeneca and Regeneron reported data on the effectiveness of their COVID-19 antibody treatments against the omicron variant of the virus. Regeneron’s therapy, REGEN-COV, is less effective against omicron, though is still active against the delta variant, confirming indications from lab tests and computer modelling late last month. AstraZeneca’s antibody cocktail, Evusheld, retained neutralizing activity against omicron, according to the lab study results. Earlier last week, researchers also announced that Eli Lilly’s antibody treatment lost effectiveness against omicron in lab tests, while GSK-Vir Biotechnology’s antibody treatment retained neutralizing activity against all tested coronavirus variants, including omicron. The omicron variant has been detected in 77 countries since it was first identified three weeks ago, driving concerns that its large number of mutations could help it evade protection by COVID-19 vaccines and therapeutics.A new needle-free COVID-19 vaccine to protect against future virus variants is being tested in the United Kingdom, researchers announced last week. The DIOS-CoVax vaccine, developed by scientists at Cambridge University, is administered through spring-powered jet injection and uses predictive methods to mimic the wider family of coronavirus antigens with the goal of providing more protection than existing vaccines. The trial, which will include participants aged 18 to 50, is a first step toward a universal coronavirus vaccine to protect people from COVID-19 variants and future coronaviruses—a vital part of next-generation vaccine candidates to help protect the world from the next virus threats, according to a researcher involved in its development.An antimalarial drug in development by Zydus Cadila in partnership with the Medicines for Malaria Venture received orphan drug designation from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Thursday. The designation makes the drug eligible for certain development incentives, including tax credits for qualified clinical testing, prescription drug user fee exemptions, and seven-year marketing exclusivity upon FDA approval. The drug, ZY19489, is a novel antimalarial compound that combats all current clinical strains of P. falciparum and P. vivax malaria, including drug-resistant strains. A phase 1 study indicated the drug has a long half-life and potential as a single-dose cure for malaria.

Interested in more global health innovation news? Every week GHTC scours media reports worldwide to deliver essential global health R&D news and content to your inbox. Sign up now to receive our weekly R&D News Roundup email. On Wednesday, global leaders agreed to start negotiations to create an international agreement to prevent and deal with future pandemics. The consensus decision, made during a special session of the World Health Assembly and reached after three days of talks, commits member states to begin work on an agreement, which would aim to bolster global action plans toward preventing, preparing, and responding to future pandemics. This could include creating a global structure to identify threats earlier, better share data or genome sequences of emerging viruses, and ensure the equitable distribution of vaccines and other tools. An intergovernmental negotiating body will draft and negotiate the final convention, which would then need to be adopted by member states.Aspen Pharmacare is finalizing an agreement to license the Johnson & Johnson (J&J) COVID-19 vaccine in Africa, the company announced last week after signing a non-binding agreement with two J&J subsidiaries. Aspen, which already packages J&J’s vaccine at its factory in South Africa, would be the first company with African rights to distribution, pricing, and branding of the vaccine. The licensing agreement would allow Aspen to launch the vaccine under the name Aspenovax and supply the shot to public-sector markets on the continent through deals with designated multilateral organizations and with governments of African Union member states. Aspen currently has capacity to manufacture up to 300 million doses of the shot, with plans to significantly increase that number to support vaccination across the African continent.Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, will finance the rollout of the RTS,S/AS01 malaria vaccine—the world’s first approved malaria vaccine and the first vaccine approved for a human parasitic disease—in sub-Saharan Africa. The funding commitment, announced Thursday, will support procurement, technical assistance for vaccine introduction, and other associated costs to enable countries to add the vaccine to immunization programs as an additional tool to combat malaria. The vaccine, developed by GlaxoSmithKline in partnership with PATH and with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, was recommended by the World Health Organization in October for broad use among children at risk in sub-Saharan Africa and other regions that experience significant levels of malaria transmission.

At GHTC, we get to read stories every day about incredible innovations in global health. Most of the technologies we see are inventive, some are revolutionary, and a few are so unusual, one might think they were ripped from the pages of a science fiction novel. Now, we’re testing how well you know these global health technologies with our annual Halloween game: the TRICK or TREATment quiz.For each question, we will present a description of a global health technology. Choose TREATment if you believe this innovation exists and has market approval. Choose TRICK if you think we are trying to pull one over on you and, instead, the product is still in development or is just a figment of our imagination.  Loading...(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){var ql=document.querySelectorAll('A[quiz],DIV[quiz],A[data-quiz],DIV[data-quiz]'); if(ql){if(ql.length){for(var k=0;k

Interested in more global health innovation news? Every week GHTC scours media reports worldwide to deliver essential global health R&D news and content to your inbox. Sign up now to receive our weekly R&D News Roundup email. On Wednesday, the World Health Organization recommended broad rollout of the world’s first malaria vaccine, known as RTS,S, among children in sub-Saharan Africa and in other regions with moderate to high P. falciparum malaria transmission. The recommendation is based on results from an ongoing pilot program—which has reached more than 800,000 children in Ghana, Kenya, and Malawi since 2019—showing the vaccine’s safety and effectiveness in remote and rural settings. Clinical trials of RTS,S, which was developed by GSK and PATH with funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, indicated it reduces the risk of contracting malaria by 40 percent and risk of hospitalization for severe malaria by 30 percent. The vaccine will now face funding decisions from the global health community for broader rollout and country decision-making on whether to adopt the vaccine as part of national malaria control strategies.A new study has identified a compound able to block dengue virus replication in test tube experiments and in mice, researchers reported in Nature last week. There are currently no specific medicines to treat dengue, which infects more than 400 million people annually and can lead to fevers, rashes, and muscle and joint aches. Researchers behind the new study screened tens of thousands of small molecules for anti-dengue activity using an automated high-throughput testing process, then tweaked several molecules to produce more than 2,000 compounds for further testing. One of those drugs, JNJ-A07, proved equally potent against all four dengue serotypes in test tube experiments. In subsequent testing in mice, the compound was highly effective in reducing viral loads and viral-induced disease. The drug will be further tested in clinical trials for safety and efficacy in humans, according to developer Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson.The African Medicines Agency (AMA) treaty was ratified by its 15th African Union (AU) member country last week, meeting the threshold for the agency to be officially set up. The treaty was adopted by the AU in February 2019, though it required ratification and formal notification from 15 countries to launch implementation. Following Cameroon’s ratification on Tuesday, the AU now has 30 days, or until November 5, to begin setting up the agency, which is intended to support African countries in improving and harmonizing the regulation of medicines across the continent in order to improve access to quality, safe, and efficacious products. The AMA will be Africa’s second continental health agency, joining the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.