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Agreements

Date: 2012-04-12

Type of information: R&D agreement

Compound: novel drug candidates

Company: AstraZeneca (UK) Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi)

Therapeutic area: Infectious diseases - Parasitic diseases

Type agreement:

R&D

Action mechanism:

Disease: Chagas disease, leishmaniasis, sleeping sickness (human African trypanosomiasis)

Details:

AstraZeneca and the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi) have announced an agreement to collaborate on drug-compound screening for leishmaniasis, Chagas disease, and sleeping sickness, three neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) which together affect nearly 10 million people worldwide. Novel drug candidates to emerge from this collaboration will bolster the drug development pipeline for new medicines urgently needed by millions of patients.

In the new partnership, AstraZeneca will provide to DNDi 15,000 compounds that have the potential for activity against leishmaniasis, Chagas disease, and sleeping sickness. The screening activities, coordinated by DNDi, will be performed at Institut Pasteur Korea (IPK). If active compounds against any of the three diseases are identified as \'hits\', DNDi and AstraZeneca will jointly assess their potential as starting points for future medicines. This agreement follows on the commitments announced at a landmark meeting in London on January 30, \'Uniting to Combat NTDs\', where a range of public and private partners gathered in a coordinated push to support the WHO\'s control and eliminations goals for 10 of the 17 neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) by 2020.

Financial terms:

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