Projects

MMV-PDP

Identifying the next generation of medicines for the eradication of malaria: transmission blocking and relapse prevention

Completed

The MMV-PDP consortium aims to develop novel treatments to prevent relapse and block the transmission of Malaria. It brings together experts from The Netherlands and Africa, with contributions from academia, knowledge institutes, and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

Partners
10

partners from Europe and Africa

€8.8 M

funding from The Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs

About MMV-PDP

This drug discovery and development project ultimately seeks malaria medicines that target transmission and relapse – two areas of unmet medical need that are critical for the eradication agenda.

One subproject involves the so-called standard membrane feeding assay (SMFA), developed in Nijmegen, using high-throughput screening of the MMV screening deck to identify potential transmission blocking compounds. Substantial progress to date includes a class of very potent compounds (pantothenates), with the best leads being developed towards a clinical candidate.

The other subproject seeks new compounds to address infection relapse. Dormant parasites in some patients’ livers can cause new infections, sometimes years after initial infection and cure. A Dutch research group has established a unique in vitro and in vivo assay for testing compound activity against the hypnozoites, and even for exploring their relapse potential, using robust high-throughput screening.

MMV-PDP: Medicines for Malaria Venture - Product Development Partnership

Coordinating Dutch anti-Malaria efforts

Lygature is helping to drive project success, by managing a worldwide consortium of ten partners. From early 2016, a broad range of resources and support have been provided under the Lygature brand.

  • Program management and leadership. Lygature is responsible for management of the program office, where organizational aspects of the program as a whole are coordinated. In addition, Lygature coordinates consortium meetings and dissemination efforts, both within the project and to the outside world. Lygature also monitors all reporting processes between the project members and the Dutch government.
     
  • Program support. Lygature provides a custom-made IT platform for the safe exchange of data and other relevant information.   

With diverse contributions from its ten partners across the globe, the MMV-PDP consortium presents a very significant management and communication challenge. Lygature offers the broad range of skills and experience needed to facilitate progress, and plays a key role in the consortium’s efforts towards addressing two crucial unmet medical needs.

Lygature together with

Project updates


  • Ampule with a label

    Eliminating dormant malaria parasites in the liver: A missing piece of the malaria eradication puzzle

    One of the subprojects of the MMV-PDP Consortium recently received funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to further develop an innovative in vitro assay to find a drug to eliminate dormant malaria parasites in the liver – an area of unmet medical need that is critical for the malaria eradication agenda. To find out more about the significance of this research, we spoke with Clemens Kocken, Chairman of the Department of Parasitology at the Biomedical Primate Research Centre (BPRC) – the team leading the assay development.

    You can read the whole interview with Clemens Kocken here.

  • zero malaria starts with me poster

    World Malaria Day: Keeping malaria on the global agenda

    Tomorrow, 25 April, is World Malaria Day. As an organisation that has been working in the field of malaria research for more than a decade, Lygature joins the international call to action to promote World Malaria Day, helping to raise awareness of the global burden of malaria and celebrate the progress that has been made to combat it.

    The Medicines for Malaria Venture - Product Development Partnership (MMV-PDP) Consortium is a key project under Lygature’s Global Health portfolio, aiming to develop novel antimalarial drug treatments. Running since 2016, MMV-PDP has brought together experts from the Netherlands and the rest of the world, including Africa, to find malaria medicines that target transmission and relapse – two areas of unmet medical need that are critical for the malaria eradication agenda.

    Read more.

  • Innovative new drug candidate against malaria discovered

    This project could take off thanks to the support from Lygature’s predecessor TI Pharma, which enabled a multi-party, cross sector collaboration between many of the parties present in the current project. TI Pharma provided both financial and management support to the project and saw it growing from the hit to the early lead stage. 

    Since 2016 the project is funded by the Product Development Partnership III initiative of the Dutch ministry of Foreign Affairs and is led by MMV and managed by Lygature. Since then, Lygature has helped to replace a few one-on-one collaborations with a cohesive wider network of organisations with different expertise from several sectors. 

    With organisational skills combined with a profound understanding of what it takes to bring anti-infection drugs to the clinic, the project researchers have been able to focus on the science with the Lygature programme managers occasionally reminding them of the ultimate goal – to develop the best possible medicine for people suffering from malaria.  

    Read the full press release here.


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