Cash Injection for Malaria Research
A £20 million boost for malaria research was announced today by the Wellcome Trust and the Department for International Development.
The Trust, one of the world's biggest biomedical research charities, and DfID have pledged £10m each over the next five years* to the Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV).
MMV is a non-profit, public-private partnership, established to accelerate drug development for one of the world's most lethal diseases which threatens over two billion people and kills a child every 30 seconds.
This latest grant will be used to support the world's largest dedicated programme of anti-malarial drug research and development. Currently MMV has more than twenty projects in its portfolio with one- third of these now in clinical development.
One of the Millennium Development Goals, agreed by world leaders and the United Nations summit in 2000, pledges to, "halt and reverse the incidence of malaria and other major diseases" by 2015. Latest research has shown there are over 500 million cases of the most serious form of malaria – Plasmodium falciparum - which kills at least 1.5 million people every year, most of them children under five. Two-thirds of these cases occur in Africa where malaria causes estimated losses of more than £8 billion ($12 billion) in annual gross domestic product.
In a recent review of MMV's operations, a panel of experts ** concluded that MMV had made tremendous progress towards achieving its goals and added: "The malaria problem is massive and growing…There is an urgent need for new drugs that can be effectively used for treatment and prophylaxis."
Announcing the funding at a Parliamentary Seminar on Africa in London today (October 20 2005) Gareth Thomas, Minister for International Development, said: "Even though we know how to prevent and treat malaria, every year at least a million children in Africa die from this disease.
"It is essential that new treatments are researched and developed so that we can treat malaria as effectively as possible. That is why I am announcing today that we are doubling our funding to the Medicines for Malaria Venture. We have agreed to provide £2 million a year over the next five years to this venture, which aims to discover, develop and deliver new affordable anti-malarial drugs through public-private partnerships. This is a joint commitment with the Wellcome Trust who will match our support.
"By furthering our funding to help combat malaria through the Medicines for Malaria Venture, we are showing our commitment to the Millennium Development Goals and to fulfilling a G8 commitment to encourage the development of new drugs, vaccines and microbicides for malaria, tuberculosis, AIDS and other neglected diseases."
Dr Jimmy Whitworth, Head of International Activities at the Wellcome Trust, which has spent over £150 million on malaria research in the last ten years, said: "We cannot afford to ease-up in our efforts to fight malaria. Continuing research into new approaches for prevention and treatment is essential.
"Malaria is the most important parasitic disease affecting people and the spread of drug resistance is a particularly serious problem. This is why it is imperative to develop new drugs in our efforts to protect and treat millions of people at risk. MMV has a good track record in this area and has transformed prospects for new malaria drugs in the near future."
Dr.Chris Hentschel, Chief Executive Officer of MMV said, "After 5 years of operation, we have shown that our model of conducting research and development through portfolio management underpinned by effective partnerships with industry and academia works well. We are grateful to DFID and the Wellcome Trust for their continued and now, increased support.
"The UK is a leader in the global effort to defeat malaria. This is the first grant announced by a G8 country after the Gleneagles' G8 commitment to increase support for public-private partnerships pursuing research for neglected diseases. We hope other countries will soon follow the UK lead. Many products in the now burgeoning PPP product pipeline are in jeopardy if timely investments like this are not made."
Ends.
* Matched funding of £2m each from the Wellcome Trust and DfID every year from 2005/6-2009/10.
** Independent Review of Medicines for Malaria Venture.
Commissioned jointly by the following donors:
The UK Department for International Development, The Wellcome Trust, The World Bank (through their grant to MMV), The Swiss Agency for Development and Co-operation,
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and The Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs (DGIS).
Notes:
The Wellcome Trust is an independent research-funding charity established in 1936 under the will of tropical medicine pioneer Sir Henry Wellcome.The Trust's mission is to promote and foster research with the aim of improving human and animal health and it currently spends more than £400m p.a
It funds malaria research programmes at:
KEMRI - Wellcome Trust Research Programme, Kilifi and Nairobi, Kenya
The Malawi-Liverpool-Wellcome Trust Programme for Research in Tropical Medicine, Blantyre, Malawi
Wellcome Trust South-East Asia Programme in Thailand and Viet Nam
Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV) is a non-profit organisation dedicated to reducing the burden of malaria in disease-endemic countries by discovering, developing and delivering new affordable antimalarial drugs through effective public-private partnership. After five years of operation, MMV is managing the largest-ever portfolio of malaria research with more than 20 projects in different stages of drug research and development. MMV's goal is to register at least one new antimalarial before 2010 and maintain a sustainable pipeline of antimalarials to meet the needs of the 2.4 billion people at risk of this deadly disease. http://www.mmv.org
Media contacts:
Barry Gardner, Wellcome Trust(0044) 0207 611 7329.
b.gardner@wellcome.ac.uk
Contact: Anna Wang, Medicines for Malaria Venture: wanga@mmv.org, +41 79 204 2875