WEHI Special Seminar hosted by Dr Brad Sleebs
 

Dr Benoît Laleu

Director Research Drug Discovery, Medicines for Malaria Venture, Switzerland

Leveraging a track record in antimalarial drug discovery

 

Davis Auditorium

Join via TEAMS

Including Q&A session

Despite the efforts towards malaria eradication, the latest estimates from the recent WHO World Malaria Reports show that the number of cases is rising and malaria continues to have a devastating impact on the most vulnerable populations.

Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV) is a not-for-profit Swiss Foundation acting as a Product Development Partnership (PDP) with the mission to reduce the burden of malaria in disease-endemic countries by discovering, developing and facilitating the delivery of new, effective and affordable antimalarial drugs in collaboration with international partners.

MMV manages a significant antimalarial pipeline and this has been strengthened in recent years, which is important given attrition. The challenges that need to be overcome will be detailed as well as the strategy adopted to manage resistance, control and eradicate the disease, including definitions of target product and candidate profiles necessary for asexual blood stage cures and chemoprevention.

MMV is also proud to lead open-source initiatives to catalyze drug discovery for malaria and neglected diseases. The data, findings and results emanating from these initiatives are as rich as the connections and collaborations they inspire. As a result, we have now initiated a workstream adjacent to malaria in which we are exploring applying our discovery capabilities to non-malaria pathogens of public health importance.

All welcome!