Date: 2015-11-19
Type of information: R&D agreement
Compound: anti-malarial drug candidates
Company: Merck KGaA (Germany) the University of Cape Town (UCT) (South Africa)
Therapeutic area: Infectious diseases - Parasitic diseases
Type agreement: R&D
Action mechanism:
Disease: malaria
Details: * On November 19, 2015, Merck KGaA announced that a research agreement has been signed with the University of Cape Town (UCT) South Africa to co-develop a new R&D platform aimed at identifying new lead programs for potential treatments against malaria, with the potential to expand it to other tropical diseases.
Combining Merck’s R&D expertise and the drug discovery capabilities of the UCT Drug Discovery and Development Centre, H3D, the collaboration will conduct drug discovery research with the goal of developing anti-malarial drug candidates using Merck’s compound library.
H3D was founded in 2010 at UCT and officially opened its doors in April 2011, with the goal of creating the leading
drug discovery and development platform in Africa. H3D is Africa’s first modern fully integrated drug discovery centre and the only one of its kind on the continent. In 2012 the first compound discovered by H3D in partnership with Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV) was approved by MMV as a preclinical anti-malarial development candidate and has completed Phase I human trials. Under the directorship of Professor Kelly Chibale, the group has been active in malaria and tuberculosis drug discovery for the last four years and is now expanding into other therapeutic areas such as helminths (parasitic worms), cardiovascular disease and fibrosis. It currently comprises
50 scientific staff members in the areas of medicinal chemistry, biology as well as Drug Metabolism and
Pharmacokinetics.
Financial terms:
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