GSK collaborates with Dundee on neglected diseases
pharmafile | March 6, 2012 | News story | Research and Development, Sales and Marketing | Africa, Dundee, GSK, Gates, Wellcome
GlaxoSmithKline has teamed up with Dundee University and the Wellcome Trust to develop new drugs for neglected diseases.
Healthcare charity the Wellcome Trust has donated £10 million to Dundee that will help support a multi-million pound partnership with GSK.
The five-year deal will see GSK and Dundee develop new drugs for the most neglected parasitic diseases, including Chagas disease, leishmaniasis and African sleeping sickness.
These are tropical diseases with few treatments that kill tens of thousands of people across the developing world every year, and can be caused by parasites called kinetoplastids.
The drug discovery unit at Dundee will work with GSK’s kinetoplastids discovery performance unit at the firm’s Tres Cantos medicines development campus in Spain.
The partnership’s aim is to deliver at least one treatment against one of the diseases in the next five years.
It is being supported by a grant of £8.6 million from the Wellcome Trust and adds to the £1.4 million Dundee recently received by the Trust to investigate Chagas disease.
Professor Alan Fairlamb, an international expert on parasite biochemistry based in the drug discovery unit at Dundee, said: “These parasitic diseases, which afflict millions of people worldwide, are collectively responsible for about 150,000 deaths every year in Asia, Africa and Latin America.
“The drugs currently used to treat patients are often difficult to administer, have toxic side effects and are not always effective due to drug resistance.”
Professor Paul Wyatt, head of the drug discovery unit, said of the partnership: “Having an industry-experienced, multidisciplinary drug discovery team housed alongside world leaders in the biology of these parasites is a major strength of the drug discovery unit and is rare in a UK university.
“The support from the Wellcome Trust has enabled us to create a powerful team by combining DDU’s and GSK’s considerable expertise and infrastructure, to accelerate progress towards discovering new drugs for these terrible diseases.”
GSK and tropical diseases
GSK has a specific R&D group focused on diseases of the developing world, including neglected tropical diseases.
It is currently developing potential treatments for bacterial meningitis, Chagas disease, dengue, human African trypanosomiasis, leishmaniasis, malaria, and tuberculosis.
The firm’s vaccine business is also developing a malaria vaccine, RTS,S, which is undergoing Phase III trials.
Earlier this year GSK joined a new global partnership of other big pharma firms and leading organisations including the World Health Organization, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to control or eliminate 10 neglected tropical disease by 2020.
Ben Adams
Related Content
GSK’s Exdensur receives MHRA approval for asthma and rhinosinusitis
GSK’s Exdensur (depemokimab), a twice-yearly biological medicine, has received approval from the UK Medicines and …
Multiple myeloma treatment approved in Japan
GSK’s Blenrep (belantamab mafodotin) combinations have been approved by Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labour and …
Academy of Medical Sciences invests record £7.6m into early-career biomedical researchers
The Academy of Medical Sciences has awarded £7.6m to support 62 early-career biomedical researchers across …
