BioFocus DPI, a UK provider of gene-to-drug candidate discovery services, and Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV) in Geneva are to work together to identify new natural product and small molecules that demonstrate anti-malarial activity.
Prior to the collaboration, MMV had acquired access to BioFocus DPI's natural product and SoftFocus compound collections, which gave hits with anti-malarial activity in disease-specific assays. The aim of the current collaboration is to determine which of the small molecules in these collections show activity, with the intention to further optimise them as anti-malarial medicines.
"At BioFocus DPI we are pleased that our natural product and SoftFocus collections have yielded hits showing anti-malarial activity in multiple infected erythrocyte assays. These results show how well our libraries are suited to finding new leads in infectious disease," said Dr Chris Newton, senior VP of BioFocus DPI.
Tim Wells, chief scientific officer of MMV, said: "Screening of BioFocus DPI's compound collections has generated many potential anti-malarial product leads of high quality. This is an exciting find, as MMV is proactively seeking new anti-malarial compounds that can be developed into effective medicines not only to treat the lethal falciparum malaria, but also to tackle artemisinin resistance, stop malaria transmission and treat the more rare plasmodium vivax malaria. We look forward to working with BioFocus DPI to develop novel anti-malarial therapeutics that will ultimately help to eradicate this fatal disease."