Daiichi Sankyo expands antimalarial drug research collaboration with MMV

Japanese pharma major Daiichi Sankyo (TYO: 4568) says it has entered into a new joint research agreement with Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV) regarding the lead optimization project with the aim of developing a new, innovative antimalarial drug.

In June 2013, Daiichi Sankyo and MMV launched a high-throughput screening (HTS) project of a 50,000 compounds library from Daiichi Sankyo with the goal of discovering antimalarial hit compounds. Building on the identification of three hit series during the HTS project, Hit-to-Lead project was launched in March 2015.

As a result of these previous collaborative research projects, two leads that meet the criteria set by the Global Health Innovative Technology Fund (GHIT Fund) and the MMV have been obtained. The collaborative research will now proceed to the next stage as lead optimization project beginning in October 2016. The project goal for the Daiichi Sankyo and the MMV project team is to produce a clinical candidate with suitable antimalarial “drug-like” properties.