2015
WHO/TDR awards over $1 million to MMV’s ‘Exploiting the Pathogen Box’ project
This blog post originally appeared on the Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV) website and was republished with permission. MMV is an official partner of the 2015 Social Media Awards: Malaria Heroes and is supporting nominations in the Innovator category. View the original post here or read on below.
MMV’s project ‘Exploiting the Pathogen Box’ has been awarded USD 1,360,000 by WHO’s Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases (TDR) to accelerate drug development for poverty-related diseases.
The project was one of six ‘demonstration projects’ selected by WHO/TDR with guidance from the WHO Executive Board and the former Chair and Vice-Chair of the Consultative Expert Working Group on Research and Development: Financing and Coordination (CEWG). The goal of the demonstration projects is to develop health technologies (medicines, diagnostics, medical devices, vaccines, etc.), by employing innovative ways, for diseases that disproportionately affect developing countries and for which identified R&D gaps remain unaddressed due to market failures.
“The ‘Exploiting the Pathogen Box’ project by MMV is a great example of a R&D demonstration project,” said Dr Marie-Paule Kieny, WHO Assistant Director-General. “Not only does the project bear hope to discover new leads for innovative drugs against neglected tropical diseases, but it also has an inbuilt component of capacity building for researchers in developing countries.”
“We are delighted that WHO/TDR has chosen to support MMV’s ‘Exploiting the Pathogen Box’ project,” said Dr David Reddy, MMV’s CEO. “MMV and partners have spent 18 months identifying and procuring promising molecules for the Pathogen Box. This funding will really help to ensure the most is made of these molecules in the spirit of open knowledge sharing with scientists from the north and south of the globe.”
Modelled on MMV’s award winning Open Access Malaria Box and with funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Pathogen Box is due to be launched at the end of 2015. It will contain approximately 400 diverse, drug-like molecules active against diseases, such as Chagas’, human african trypanosomiasis and schistosomiasis. Upon request, researchers around the world will receive a Pathogen Box. In return, they will be asked to publish any data generated, thus creating an open and collaborative forum for neglected diseases drug research.
Through open source collaboration, WHO/TDR’s funding for the Pathogen Box will be used, over 5 years, towards the:
- Delivery of up to 25 robust active series against relevant pathogen
- Identification of mechanisms of resistance and modes of action on up to 25 Pathogen Box compounds
- Delivery of 40 Challenge Grants to endemic-country scientists to develop and build capacity in their regions, ideally leading to new projects
