GlaxoSmithKline launches cheap Malaria drug
GlaxoSmithKline has announced that it intends to launch a new drug to tackle a virulent form of Malaria in sub-Saharan Africa.
The company announced that Lapdap will be made available at a cost of $0.29 per adult and half that amount for children, and will treat plasmodium falciparum malaria, the most life-threatening malaria parasite, which kills between one and two million people every year.
Professor Peter Winstanley, (Director of the Wellcome Trust Tropical Centre at The University of Liverpool), who has been closely involved in the development work, said: "Drugs used as first-line treatment in uncomplicated P.falciparum malaria ... are failing because of increasing parasite resistance. [Lapdap] can help us meet the urgent need for an affordable anti-malaria treatment for use in Africa, as it has been shown to work in cases where S/P has failed."
Lapdap was developed through a public/private collaboration between the World Health Organization and GlaxoSmithKline.