Malaria charity receives $115 million from the Gates Foundation

Chris Hentschel, MMV’s President and CEO, said this substantial grant was not only welcome, but would be transformative. “It will underpin financially what we are seeking to achieve in our new business plan and validate it as an excellent development investment.”

The MMV has pioneered - and become a role model - for how to prime the development of drugs for the neglected diseases that have all-too-often been ignored by pharmaceutical companies on the grounds of their limited commercial appeal. Despite the current financial turbulence MMV says it now enters its 10th year not just with a vision but with the means to implement it.  

Timothy Wells, MMV’s CSO, said the new funding has arrived at a critical time. Over the last few months the charity has launched Coartem, an antimalarial designed specially for children, submitted another antimalarial, Eurartesim, to the EMEA for regulatory approval and is in the process of pulling together the regulatory dossier for a third antimalarial, Pyramax.

“With our partners, we have built a portfolio of more than 50 new projects of which ten are in clinical development. With the emergence of resistance to Artemisinin in Cambodia, it’s clear that the ambitious goal of malaria eradication will require a wide range of new medicines. The new grant from the Foundation will enable MMV to continue the development of the next generation of antimalarial medicines.”

With this grant, the cumulative funding raised and pledged to MMV from 14 public and private donors since its formation in 1999 is $470 million.

MMV’s mission is to bring public, private and philanthropic sector partners together to fund and manage the discovery, development and delivery of new medicines for the treatment and prevention of malaria in disease-endemic countries. It is currently managing a portfolio of over 50 antimalarial projects in collaboration with over 80 pharmaceutical, academic, and endemic-country partners in 44 countries.