A unique collaboration of representatives
from academia, biotechnology, pharmaceutical, and the nonprofit
sector is pioneering a bold approach to make safe, effective
antimalarial medicines accessible to people in poor countries.
The partnership is applying a combination
of synthetic biology, industrial fermentation, chemical synthesis,
and drug development expertise to a very specific need of
the developing world. In doing so, the partnership sets an
example of how groups with critical knowledge and skills
can pool talents to address a major global health problem.
A key element of this project is the application of basic
research principles to a real-world problem.
Armed with a $42.6 million grant from the Bill
& Melinda Gates Foundation, the Institute for OneWorld Health formed
a funded research and development collaboration, known as
the Artemisinin
Project, with Prof. Jay Keasling at the University of California,
Berkeley and Amyris to develop semisynthetic
artemisinin. In 2008, sanofi-aventis joined the collaborative
effort to apply their expertise in process development and
manufacturing scale-up.
Malaria has become increasingly resistant to front-line
medications, but combination drugs containing artemisinin derivatives
show nearly 100 percent effectiveness after a brief, three-day regimen.
Yet, even at a price of approximately $2.20 per adult course for
artemisinin combination therapies (ACTs) approved by the World Health
Organization 1,
these drugs are still beyond the reach of millions of the world's
poorest people.
Over the course of the grant, the project aims to
create, optimize, scale-up, and industrialize microbial production
systems to make bulk artemisinin available for incorporation into
ACTs, at a low price with consistent high quality. A second source
of artemisinin, in addition to plant-derived material, is needed
to ensure global supply needs can be fulfilled due to current market
volatility. If technical benchmarks are achieved, the project would
progress to the commercial manufacturing phase with the goal to
facilitate integration of semisynthetic artemisinin into the supply
chain and ACTs.
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