The first malaria drug in over 20 years to have a new mechanism of action could advance efforts to kill drug-resistant parasites if approved. Basel-based Novartis and Geneva-based non-profit Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV) announced positive phase 3 trial results at the Annual Meeting of the American Society of Tropical Medicine & Hygiene in Toronto. The next-generation malaria treatment GanLum, which combines a novel ingredient — ganaplacide — with the approved antimalarial lumefatrine, cured 97.4% of participants, outperforming current treatment, which cured 94%. The KALUMA study recruited 1,688 participants with acute, uncomplicated malaria due to Plasmodium falciparum, in 34 sites across 12 African nations.
Novartis labs in San Diego conducted a high-throughput screen of 2.3 million molecules to identify ganaplacide, a member of the imidazolopiperazines family. Ganaplacide targets the parasite’s intracellular secretory pathway. GanLum could provide a bulwark against the growing threat of artemisinin-resistant malaria. “We started to see the emergence of resistance and set about to create a totally new kind of compound,” says Sujata Vaidyanathan, Head of Novartis’s Global Health Development Unit.
