Consortium to develop drugs for neglected tropical diseases

A consortium has been formed to develop drugs for the treatment of African sleeping sickness and Leishmaniasis, which affect millions of people worldwide.

The group, which includes IOTA Pharmaceuticals, Mercachem, Nycomed, the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi), the Royal Tropical Institute, the University of Bern, the VU University Amsterdam and TI Pharma, has been allocated nearly Euro 3.6m over the next four years to develop effective drugs for these diseases.

Rob Leurs, the project's principal investigator from the VU University Amsterdam, said: "African sleeping sickness and Leishmaniasis are diseases caused by parasites. Both diseases are prominent on the World Health Organisation's (WHO) list of neglected tropical diseases for which no effective medication is available."

The consortium will target parasite-specific phosphodiesterase to develop and screen drug candidates for clinical evaluation and the treatment of both diseases.

Recent WHO estimates indicate that approximately 60 million people are at risk of contracting African sleeping sickness (also called human African trypanosomiasis), with an estimated 50,000-70,000 new cases occurring each year. The disease appears in 36 countries in sub-Saharan Africa and is endemic in Uganda and Kenya, killing more than 40,000 people each year. The African sleeping sickness parasite, most commonly Trypanosoma brucei, is transmitted to humans by tsetse fly bites.

Leishmaniasis is found in many tropical and sub-tropical countries, from Central and South America to Asia and the Middle East. 350 million people are at risk of developing the disease, with up to 12 million people worldwide infected, and 1.5-2 million new cases occurring each year.

Leishmaniasis presents in cutaneous, visceral and mucosal forms, with the visceral form of the disease alone having an estimated incidence of 500,000 cases each year, and causing 60,000 deaths. Many different Leishmania species are implicated in the disease, which is transmitted by sand flies.

This new project on phosphodiesterase is TI Pharma's sixth initiative in neglected diseases.

Earlier this year, Merck & Co and the DNDi announced that they would support the discovery and development of improved treatments for neglected tropical diseases such as visceral Leishmaniasis and Chagas disease.

Last year, the DNDi extended its collaboration with US medicine developer Scynexis to develop therapies for African trypanosomiasis for a further three years.