Institute for OneWorld Health Commemorates Africa Malaria Day 2006: Universal Access to Artemisinin-based Combination Therapies.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Institute for OneWorld Health:

Facts & Figures

--More than 3.2 billion people -- or 40 percent of the world's population -- are at risk.

--Number of infections annually: 300-500 million.

--Malaria claims 3,000 lives every day and between 1-3 million each year.

--Children under five and pregnant women are most vulnerable.

--Disproportionately affects the impoverished, with 58 percent of malaria occurring in the poorest 20 percent of the world's population.

--Malaria is endemic in more than 100 countries worldwide, notably in sub-Saharan Africa, where approximately 90 percent of deaths occur.

--Africa Malaria Day 2006 highlights the need to provide universal access to artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs) and calls for these treatments to reach those who need them as quickly as possible.

The Problem

Malaria has become increasingly resistant to first-line drug therapies, but combination drugs containing artemisinin derivatives show nearly 100 percent effectiveness against the malaria parasite. Yet, remarkably, priced at $2.40 per adult course, these drugs are still beyond the reach of the world's poorest people.

The Solution

In partnership with Amyris Biotechnologies and the University of California, Berkeley, the Institute for OneWorld Health is using synthetic biology to help reduce the cost of making life-saving artemisinin combination therapies more accessible to people in the developing world.

Over the next four years, the collaboration will develop a process to use living cells as microbial 'factories' to biosynthetically manufacture Artemisinic Acid, a key precursor to artemisinin, the principal ingredient used in the most effective antimalarial drugs today. Currently, artemisinin is laboriously and expensively extracted from Artemisia annua, a medicinal plant grown primarily in China, Vietnam, and parts of Africa.

The Promise

This project carries the potential to significantly drive down the cost of artemisinin and produce a consistent supply of this important active pharmaceutical material. While this project is not focused on creating a new ACT drug, it will instead develop a complimentary, biosynthetic source of artemisinin and its derivatives -- key ingredients in ACTs. These products will then be sold to pharmaceutical companies to be incorporated into life-saving treatments. The project aims to ensure that these ACT manufacturers have a consistent, reliable, and inexpensive source of artemisinin derivatives. We anticipate that this project will significantly reduce the price of these life-saving medicines, making them more accessible to the millions of impoverished people who contract malaria each year.

For more information about this project, please visit: http://www.artemisininproject.org.

The Institute for OneWorld Health

Building on decades of pharmaceutical innovation and research, the Institute for OneWorld Health is taking the pharmaceutical industry in a new direction. We are one small example of how the United States' world leadership in scientific research and medical expertise can be deployed to improve the health of the developing world. We tap into the pragmatic idealism of a generation of pharmaceutical scientists and professionals eager to engage in work that has a truly global impact. We believe OneWorld Health to be at the forefront of the most important shift in the application of scientific inquiry towards global health in our lifetime.