Sanofi-Aventis, OneWorld, Amyris Partner To Develop Artemisinin To Treat Malaria
Pharmaceutical company Sanofi-Aventis on Monday announced that it has partnered with OneWorld Health and Amyris Biotechnologies to develop partly synthetic artemisinin for use in malaria drugs, Thomson Financial/CNNMoney.com reports (Thomson Financial/CNNMoney.com, 3/3).
The collaboration aims to supplement the current supply of artemisinin with a nonseasonal, low-cost course, which could enable people diagnosed with malaria to have consistent access to artemisinin-based combination therapies, according to a Sanofi-Aventis release. Jay Keasling, a professor at the University of California-Berkeley, initially identified a genetic pathway and created a microbial system that produces artemisinin through a fermentation process. Amyris is expected to provide strain engineering expertise using synthetic biology tools. Sanofi-Aventis plans to work on the fermentation and chemistry process, and OneWorld Health aims to achieve public policy and global access goals (Sanofi-Aventis release, 3/3).
If the project is successful, it could produce enough artemisinin to treat 200 million people out of the approximately 500 million who contract malaria annually, company officials said. Sanofi-Aventis said the partners hope to begin selling the product in 2010 (Thomson Financial/CNNMoney.com, 3/3).
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is funding the project. The foundation awarded OneWorld Health a five-year, $42.6 million grant in 2004 to manage collaborative research and development with Amyris and Keasling on a technology platform capable of producing artemisinin and its derivatives. Jack Newman, founder and senior vice president of Amyris, said, "What started as breakthrough in the lab can now evolve into a real solution that will truly make a difference in the world" (Sanofi-Aventis release, 3/3).
