Neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) affect more than one billion people worldwide. Although this group of 20 infectious conditions corresponds to 11 per cent of the global disease burden, no innovative drugs have been developed in this field. The World Health Organization (WHO) has played a central role in raising global awareness on the subject. Recently, WHO launched its roadmap on NTDs for 2021-2030, which highlights the advances made over the past years and sets the strategies to eliminate these diseases by 2030. According to this agenda, pharmaceutical innovation will be central for the achievement of the agreed goals, especially for protozoan and helminthic NTDs. Unfortunately, drug research and development (R&D) for highly prevalent NTDs such as schistosomiasis, human African trypanosomiasis, Chagas disease and leishmaniasis, has, for decades, been characterised for insufficient funding and low-technology approaches. This paradigm has recently changed given the rising of initiatives that involve notfor- profit organisations, universities, and pharma companies. Among these partnerships we can cite the NTD Drug Discovery Booster, the Lead Optimization Latin America (LOLA),the WIPO Re: Search project, and the Welcome Trust for NTD drug discovery programme, the first two being administered by the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi). These programmes have proven invaluable to catalyse drug R&D for NTDs by integrating medicinal chemistry and parasite biology and allowing multi-parameter optimisation (MPO) of high-quality hits and lead compounds. Despite these efforts, innovative products have not been regularly developed and approved for NTDs. The few products that have recently been approved for these conditions are known or repurposed drugs, new formulations, or combination chemotherapies.
Read More: https://www.pharmafocusasia.com/research-development/innovation-elimination-neglected