News
Parallel session “Next-generation leads targeting neglected tropical diseases”
In this series of articles, we look back at the highlights of the parallel sessions that were organized at the 2019 Lygature Partnerships Meetup.
As co-organizer, Remco de Vrueh from Lygature set the stage of the meeting by highlighting the pivotal role drug discovery plays in industry, academia and society in jointly meeting the UN Global Health and Well-Being Goals (Sustainable Development Goal 3). Apart from the societal reward, the experts of today demonstrated that the discovery stage is an exciting area where high-quality science in chemistry, biology and translational research coalesces into the leads for novel or improved treatments of neglected tropical diseases, including malaria and tuberculosis.
Jennifer Keiser from the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute (Swiss TPH) established that praziquantel is currently the only available drug to treat schistosomiasis. Due to acceptance problems there is a need for new drugs, but as schistosomiasis is a neglected area in the field of drug discovery, the pipeline is empty. The Helminth Drug Development Unit at Swiss TPH rises this challenge by the in vitro and in vivo screening of compounds in helminth rodent models. Access to compound libraries is one of the crucial aspects in this process.
Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV) works in partnerships on the discovery, development and delivery of new anti-malarial drugs. James Duffy from MMV talked about the challenges in anti-malarial drug discovery. These challenges are to find a single-dose drug, to achieve efficacy against all known field resistance and to obtain a cheap (<1 dollar/dose) and child-friendly Fixed-Dose Combination (FDC). Through partnerships, MMV is focused on the development of new assays, and identifying new targets and drug candidates.
Bernd van Buuren from Protinhi Therapeutics discussed the increased number of travellers worldwide, which results in an upcoming threat of dengue while there is no drug available. Protinhi Therapeutics aims to develop a drug for dengue fever by targeting a viral protease (protease inhibition). Beside dengue fever, this early stage biotech company focuses on drug discovery for Zika fever and West Nile virus infection as these viruses show structural similarities with Dengue.
Jon de Vlieger, from Lygature and Coordinator of the European Lead Factory (ELF), concluded with an overview of new opportunities for academic and biotech companies to advance their drug discovery for Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) through the European Lead Factory. In the next years, the ELF will perform over 50 new high throughput screens on drug targets and phenotypes to be proposed by the wider European drug discovery community. For NTDs, the ELF partnership has defined very favourable terms and conditions, allowing these programmes to be screened for free without any later stage milestone payments.
In conclusion, the need for novel leads in the area of Global Health and Well-Being is clearly recognized and represents hope to the more than one billion people affected across the globe.
If you have any ideas on this topic, please contact Jon de Vlieger via jon.devlieger@lygature.org or Remco de Vrueh via remco.devrueh@lygature.org