Associated organisationsDrugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative · Global Antibiotic Research and Development Partnership (GARDP)Europe PMC affiliations are not treated as award recipients or mapped locations.
Funding£4.9M
PeriodJan 2022 — Apr 2024
In plain English
AI plain-English summary
Leishmaniasis patients in Asia and Africa will begin receiving experimental oral treatments in Phase II clinical trials, moving the most promising drug candidates toward regulatory approval and widespread use. The problem is stark: current leishmaniasis treatments require painful injections, hospital stays, and often cause severe side effects. Many patients, particularly in rural areas, delay or avoid treatment entirely. This project targets that gap by developing well-tolerated oral therapies that can be administered in primary care settings, not just specialist hospitals. If successful, these treatments could cut the time between symptom onset and treatment from weeks to days, reducing deaths and preventing transmission. The drugs would also address complex cases—people co-infected with HIV, those with disfiguring muco-cutaneous disease, and patients with post-kala-azar dermal leishmaniasis, a skin condition that can follow treated visceral leishmaniasis. In Asia, the goal is elimination of visceral leishmaniasis as a public health problem; in Africa and Latin America, better disease control. The programme aligns with the WHO roadmap for neglected tropical diseases, which calls for safe, user-friendly therapies that patients will actually take.
View original technical description
Our vision is to improve substantially the treatment of leishmaniasis globally by developing effective, well-tolerated and affordable therapies. The project will build on previous programme achievements by launching the clinical development of front-runner NCEs in endemic countries (Phase II studies in Asia and Africa), whilst progressing the remaining candidates through pre- clinical and/or Phase I development. The most promising candidates will then be progressed towards Phase III clinical studies in adults and children, with industrial scale-up and registration in disease endemic regions. The innovative leishmaniasis treatment(s), which may include combination therapies as well as monotherapies, will contribute to the sustainable elimination efforts against VL in Asia, as well as disease control in Africa and Latin America, and will contribute to control of CL worldwide. Well- tolerated, oral treatments for use in primary care settings will reduce time between onset of symptoms and treatment, therefore reducing mortality, morbidity and breaking the cycle of transmission. The new treatment(s) could also benefit patients presenting with complex forms of leishmaniasis, such as HIV/VL co-infected individuals, muco-cutaneous (MCL) and post-kala-azar dermal leishmaniasis (PKDL). The programme is in line with the updated World Health Organization (WHO) Roadmap for NTDs, calling for user-friendly, safe and highly efficacious treatments.
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