By Peter Orengo

A next generation anti-malarial drug that can fight resistance may soon hit the markets after researchers announced positive results on a drug still under clinical trials.

The drug, NITD 609, was discovered by the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute and the Scripps Research Institute and is considered a novel compound that shows promise as a next generation treatment for drug resistant malaria.

According to Dr Linus Igwemezie, executive vice-president, Malaria Initiative at the Novartis Institute for Tropical Diseases (NITD), the drug, which is in its second phase of clinical development, is a potential one-dose treatment and may hit the markets as early as 2017.

“Drug resistance is causing researchers a lot of worry. That is why we started research on drugs that can beat resistance. NITD 609 has so far shown positive results in fighting resistance in malaria,” said Igwemezie, during the celebration to mark The 500 millionth Treatment of Coartem in Africa, in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

Collaboration

He said the discovery of NITD 609 is a result of collaboration between researchers from the Genomics Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation, Wellcome Trust and the Singapore Economic Development Board and Medicines for Malaria Venture, work that started back in 2006.

The announcement comes barely a month after doctors admitted that malaria drug resistance had been recorded in South East Asia in the border regions of Thailand, Cambodia and Myanmar.

Dr Willis Akhwale, the head of the Division of Disease Control and Prevention in the Public Health Ministry last month warned that Africa must be prepared for a possible emergence of anti-malarial drug resistance.

He called for collaboration between stakeholders in response to the health threat.

“The risk that anti-malarial drugs resistance will spread is significant due to increased trans-continental flights. East Africa is particularly vulnerable, being a major regional trade hub in the Eastern African region,” said Akhwale.

Awarded the Medicines for Malaria Venture’s Project of the Year 2009, NITD 609 is one of only a handful of molecules capable of curing Plasmodium berghei – a preclinical mouse model of blood-stage malaria.

“As an investigational drug, NITD 609 if proven safe, will be the first anti-malarial not belonging to either the artemisinin or peroxide class to enter clinical efficacy studies,” said Dr Nathan Mulure, the Novartis manager of African Operations.

In 2011, the same group of scientists announced the discovery of a second new dual-acting class of anti-malarial compounds called imidazolopiperazines — that acts on both blood and liver infections.