Results tagged “malaria”

Over the last five years, we've seen that scaling up existing malaria control interventions--bed-nets and anti-malarial treatments--leads to dramatic reduction in the burden of the disease in some countries and eradicating it completely in others, and with our malaria vaccine candidate in late stage development there is much to be optimistic about. So it is timely that World Malaria Day happens smack in the middle of World Immunization Week!

For most of us who were born in the US, there is no first-hand knowledge of malaria, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't care about it.  It used to be a problem, especially in warmer parts of the Lower 48. Thankfully, a well-coordinated effort eliminated it in the US in 1951.

Because despite recent successes, half the world's population remains at risk of malaria and it still kills almost 655,000 people every year--mostly young children in sub-Saharan Africa. One of our researchers recounted a trip where he saw "children's lives hanging by a thread, mothers waiting anxiously for news of their child's survival, communities suffering from the loss of another life, over-burdened hospitals and over-worked doctors making tough decisions, not about how to treat but who to save." 

We won't tackle malaria by adopting a business-as-usual approach. This is why our program is not only about ensuring access to existing interventions, it's about continuing to invest in innovation and science to ensure we are playing our part in supporting the theme of this year's World Malaria Day: Sustain Gains, Save Lives, Invest in Malaria.

GSK and the PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative (MVI), together with prominent African research centers, have partnered to develop a malaria vaccine candidate, known as RTS,S.  RTS,S which is currently in a Phase III trial, is the world's most clinically advanced malaria vaccine candidate.  If licensed and approved by the World Health Organization (WHO) it will be used exclusively for children in sub-Saharan Africa who suffer the greatest burden of disease.  A vaccine, if approved, would be an important component of a comprehensive malaria control program which already includes bed nets and anti-malaria medicines.

We're committed to making this vaccine candidate available to those who need it most.  The eventual price of RTS,S will cover the cost of manufacturing the vaccine together with a small return of around 5% that will be reinvested in R&D for second-generation malaria vaccines or vaccines against other neglected tropical diseases.

We're also working in partnership with other organizations to increase the availability and uptake of preventative measures and improve management of malaria, particularly for young children and pregnant women. This includes providing our anti-malarial medicines at deeply discounted prices in LDCs and sub-Saharan Africa to ensure access for as many people as possible.

In communities in Tanzania, Ghana, Nigeria, and Kenya, we're working with partners and with national malaria control programs to help build capacity of community health workers and mobilize families to become the frontline in the fight against malaria.

Up next...polio, a great example of a successful combination of public health policy and sound science.

This weekend the world observed World Malaria Day, an opportunity to focus international attention on the epidemic and review progress in the fight against the disease.

As someone who grew up in Nigeria in West Africa, I experienced malaria as a normal part of childhood.  Malaria was everywhere in my community, as common as the flu is in the United States.   But unlike the regular seasonal flu shots we are accustomed to here, we essentially waited for malaria to strike and then were left to treat it. 

My siblings and I are all incredibly allergic to quinine--formerly the main ingredient in malaria medicine--so our family spent a lot of time and energy on malaria prevention.  Most nights we could be found sealing all the windows and doors of our bedrooms and spraying our rooms with heavy-duty mosquito repellant. We would then wait for about half an hour or so for the fumes to dissipate before heading off to sleep. 

Despite our nightly efforts--combined with the mosquito nets and screen doors we had all over our home--we all managed to contract malaria.  One of my younger sisters, Mimi, says "I spent my entire childhood with malaria!" This is a slight exaggeration but she did have malaria quite frequently!  The effects of malaria were a high fever, achy joints, chills, lethargy, and loss of appetite which lead to weight loss.  However, we were the fortunate ones.  Our mother worked in healthcare, and our aunt is a doctor.  That meant that we had an easier time accessing medical care, and we often received special attention.

The average person living in Sub-Saharan Africa is not as lucky.  Each year there are more than 800,000 malaria deaths in Sub-Saharan Africa alone, and more than 900,000 globally. 

This is why I am so proud to work for a company with such a strong commitment to malaria research. 

GSK has invested more than $300 million and two decades developing a malaria vaccine, now in advanced testing across 11 sites throughout Africa.  We join a consortium of world-class African research institutions leading this trial on the ground and together we are more than halfway to our projected enrollment of 16,000 children and infants.  Our partnerships--with the PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative, incredible African researchers, and local communities across Africa--are the key factors in our progress.

Additionally, my colleagues across the company are working on exciting initiatives to spur research into new drugs across the globe; develop unique partnerships to speed our R&D efforts; and partner with communities to promote education about malaria prevention.

To address the growing resistance to current malaria treatments, GSK works in partnership with Medicines for Malaria Venture to research new therapies. In addition to our own drug R&D program, GSK helps to advance the work of other researchers in the field. After scanning more than two million drug compounds in our library, we found 13,500 that could potentially inhibit the malaria parasite. In January 2010, GSK made these compounds freely available in the public domain to researchers around the globe.

We also work with local communities through our Africa Malaria Partnership program to prevent and treat malaria in sub-Saharan Africa. The organizations we partner with on-the-ground promote the use of existing interventions such as bed nets, insecticide spraying and existing treatments.

When I was a child, there was no such thing as World Malaria Day.  Now, as the world pauses and calls out for continued commitment in the fight against malaria, we can say that we are well on our way to developing new tools to answer that call.

Listen to GSK CEO Andrew Witty on BBC this weekend to mark World Malaria Day.

Recently, Bill Gates injected new energy and resources into the immunization field with an unprecedented pledge of $10 billion through 2020 for vaccine development and delivery.

This month, the blog for ONE, a grassroots campaign and advocacy organization cofounded by Bono and other campaigners, is featuring a series, "Vaccines: The Next 10 Years."

Check out what Jean Stephenne, President, GSK Biologicals, had to say about the three conditions needed to truly succeed over the next 10 years.

For GSK to really embrace open innovation, we must first be more open with our intellectual property. Last year, we announced that we would put 800 patents and patent applications into the public domain--commonly known as a 'patent pool'--to help the search for new medicines for neglected tropical diseases. Since we made that announcement, one small company, Alnlyam, has joined us. We hope others will join--and not just companies, but NGOs, not-for-profits, academics.

But our approach will go much further than just patents.  We will allow access to our general "know how" and other knowledge and expertise. In fact we shouldn't call the pool a patent pool--we should call it a knowledge pool, because so much more than just patents are included.

That is why the second element of our open innovation strategy was to create a new concept called the Open Lab which will be part of our Tres Cantos Medicines Development Campus in Spain, dedicated to discovering new medicines for diseases of the developing world.

We are creating capacity for up to 60 outside researchers at our Tres Cantos Campus.  At the Open Lab, researchers will be able to pursue their projects as part of a drug discovery team, allowing these visiting experts to tap into our expertise, facilities, knowledge and industrial-scale infrastructure.  In addition to the resources and benefits-in-kind we are putting into this project, we will also set up a not-for-profit foundation to help fund these research projects, with initial seed funding from us of US$8 million.

This concept has already gained some traction. We are in discussions with two organizations--on projects for malaria and on TB--and we hope to conclude agreements soon and welcome these scientists into the Open Lab.

The third element of our open innovation strategy is to share our malaria drug-development expertise with the world's scientific community. How? Well, we have recently screened our entire compound library for molecules that inhibit the malaria parasite P. falciparum, the deadliest form of malaria found primarily in sub-Saharan Africa. This exercise has identified more than 13,500 'hits' that inhibited the parasite.

Today I am pleased to announce that we commit to put these 13,500 compounds, their chemical structures and associated assay data, into the public domain, making them freely available on leading scientific websites. Over 85% of these are proprietary to GSK. Our hope and expectation is that this will encourage further research by the scientific community on these findings and the opportunities they offer.

We believe that we are the first company to put in the public domain this level of data--and critically these specific chemical structures--from the screening of the entire compound library.  By putting together our compounds, access to our patents and know-how and access to our R&D center and infrastructure we are demonstrating our commitment to R&D for the NTDs.

Seated from left: Salim Abdulla, Tanzanian PI; Joe Cohen (at microphone); Christian Loucq, PATH MVI; Regina Rabinovitch, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

You may have heard that an online war was raging this week. A war between kings: Larry King and Ashton "Twitter King" Kutcher. 

Kutcher told King that he could amass 1,000,000 followers on Twitter before CNN could.  He tweeted that if he did, he would donate 10,000 treated bednets to Malaria No More.  Bednets prevent mosquitos--which spread malaria--from infecting people.  It is such a simple way to prevent the disease.

Well, he did. During the run up to the big win (which happened today), Kutcher had been tweeting a great deal about malaria. As a consequence, other celebrities on Twitter have lent their support and are donating bednets:

CNNBrk - 10,000

Ryan Seacrest 10,000

Oprah - 20,000

At GSK we are committed to playing a significant role in improving the health of communities affected by malaria in three ways:

• Through on-going research--we have a new vaccine in development to prevent malaria
• With preferential pricing of our anti-malarials in the least developed countries and sub-Saharan Africa
• Through our community investment activities funded by the GSK African Malaria Partnership, founded in 2001 to improve the prevention and treatment of malaria in sub-Saharan Africa.

Defeating this disease, which kills one million people each year, is no simple feat. It will require both collaboration and creativity, not to mention multiple interventions, like bednets and medical advances.  This week we got to witness an interesting real-time case study of what celebrity and social media can do for the greater good.

Well done, Mr. Kutcher.

Last week, I traveled with Andrew Witty as he spoke with media, government leaders, and faculty and students at Harvard Medical School about GSK's new policies to address the needs of the developing world. 

With refreshing candor, Andrew outlined our goal to be more innovative, open-minded and flexible to help people afflicted with neglected tropical diseases--diseases like malaria and lymphatic filiriasis (LF) which often don't take precedence--and the barriers to access facing the world's poorest countries.

Our plan includes four specific changes, including:

·         a more flexible approach to intellectual property in the 50 least-developed countries in the world through the development of a patent pool for neglected tropical diseases

·         a reduction in prices for patented medicines in these countries so that they will be no higher than 25 percent of the price in the developed world, assuming we can cover our cost of goods

·         a "bricks and mortar" approach to the patent pool by opening the doors of our R&D facility in Tres Cantos, Spain to external partners with the goal of creating a truly world-class, global center of excellence for diseases of the developing world

·         the re-investment of 20% of the-albeit very small-profit we make selling medicines in the least developed countries in infrastructure projects, such as the building of clinics, nurse education and training, and perhaps even new supply chain mechanisms to get medicines to rural areas.

The message was simple: we do not claim to have all of the answers, nor that we can change the world.  However, we have chosen to take a risk by evolving our business practices and model for the developing world.  We will not to shirk from difficult issues or hard decisions.  In doing so, we aim to be a catalyst for change.

While we cannot predict the response of our allies or our critics, we hope that others will join us in these endeavors because it's the right thing to do.  So far, the response has been supportive.  (Read more from The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg and The Guardian (UK)).