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The goal of the partnership is to use microbial fermentation to produce a key compound used to make artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs), currently the WHO recommended treatment for malaria. Our aim is to make a more affordable and reliable source of artemisinin. We anticipate that bulk production of this important compound will reduce the price of these life-saving medicines, making them more accessible to the hundreds of millions of impoverished people who contract malaria each year. We are working to develop a semisynthetic system to produce artemisinin, which can then be chemically modified to produce many different derivatives for use in ACTs. The development of an additional consistent, reliable source of artemisinin will help drug manufacturers avoid global shortages in the future. As with any plant-derived material, production is currently dependent on factors that are out of the control of drug makers and patients – factors such as drought, flood, political turmoil, and pestilence.
While this project is not focused on creating a new ACT drug, it will instead develop a second source of artemisinin, a key element of ACTs. This product will then be sold for incorporation into life-saving ACT treatments.
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Reduce Cost:
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Malaria has become increasingly resistant to most front-line medications, but combination drugs containing artemisinin show nearly 100 percent effectiveness after a short three-day regimen.1 Yet, due to their labor-intensive and lengthy production process, these drugs are costly, making them inaccessible to the world's poorest people. The project aims to create, optimize, and scale-up microbial production systems to make bulk artemisinin available to high quality ACT manufacturers at a price lower than their current cost.
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Develop a Second Source:
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The global community is indebted to Chinese traditional healers, who first discovered the antimalarial properties of Artemisia annua, known colloquially as sweet wormwood. The plant's active ingredient, artemisinin, is a key component of today's most effective antimalarial treatments. A. annua is predominantly grown by farmers in China, Vietnam, and parts of Africa. It has a relatively long growing season, and the process of extracting artemisinin from the leaves of the plant is complex and time-consuming. The development of a semisynthetic source of artemisinin would provide a second source of this key ingredient and help ensure that ACT manufacturers have a consistent, reliable, high quality, and inexpensive supply of the compound.
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