Home
Responsibility
CR Report 2005
Case studies
A prescription for combating global diseases

Case Study

A prescription for combating global diseases

Malaria kills over one million people a year, mostly children in developing countries. Beyond the human toll, malaria costs Africa at least $12 billion a year in lost growth and accounts for around 40% of public health spending.

Until recently there was little research devoted to malaria and other developing world diseases. Developing countries often don’t have the money to pay for new medicines so there is little incentive for companies to develop them.

In the last five years, public private partnerships (PPPs) have transformed the research landscape for malaria and other developing world diseases. GSK is involved in several such partnerships. In a PPP, public sector organisations including governments and private foundations, such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, help fund research and may also help developing countries purchase new products once they are registered.

The Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV) now manages the largest portfolio of malaria drug research in history with 21 projects at different stages of development. GSK is one of several partners in MMV along with academic institutions, biotech firms and other pharmaceutical companies.

One of our MMV projects is CDA, an affordable fixed-dose combination treatment for malaria in Africa. CDA is based on GSK’s Lapdap, itself one of the first new malaria treatments developed through a PPP. In 2005, clinical trials showed that CDA may be effective against drug resistant malaria.

A similar partnership, the Malaria Vaccine Initiative is accelerating the development of a malaria vaccine. GSK clinical trials in 2004 and 2005 showed that the vaccine, Mosquirix, is efficacious in children aged 1-5 over an 18 month period. This is the first time a vaccine has been proved efficacious against a parasitic disease in humans. These results demonstrate the feasibility of developing an efficacious vaccine against malaria that could significantly contribute to reduce the intolerable global burden of this disease.

For more about public private partnerships and our research into new treatments and vaccines for malaria, see research and development for diseases of the developing world.