Africa is often described as the “next frontier” in the global economy but malaria — both driven by and causing poverty — still chokes economic growth. Yet we have made advances to break that cycle in recent years. Africa is starting to play a more important role. Pharmaceutical research and development historically occurred mostly in richer countries with concentrations of infrastructure, technology, scientists and clinicians. While the difficulties are formidable in Africa, strong progress has been made recently, as illustrated by H3D.
The Centre contributes to world-class scientific output, encapsulated by its flagship compound MMV048, the first clinical anti-plasmodial candidate of a new class of compounds which target the parasite PI4 kinase system. This is the first clinical candidate to come out of Africa with the potential to be used as part of a single-dose cure. The drug is active across all clinical stages of the parasite life cycle.
H3D is part of the Malaria Drug Accelerator (MalDA), a consortium of 18 different laboratories who have individually developed and maintained many of the platforms that contribute to early stage anti-malaria drug development including target discovery and validation.
For more information on our available Malaria Biology assays please see here.
