Wonder OZ
Aug 19th 2004, 6:10 am
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Wonder OZ
Chairman Mao's secret cure for malaria
By Roger Highfield
(Filed: 19/08/2004)
A synthetic version of a drug used for more than 1,500 years in Chinese medicine is hailed today as a breakthrough in efforts to reduce the million deaths caused each year by malaria.
Treatment based on the Chinese herbal remedy qinghaosu was developed during Chairman Mao's Cultural Revolution but tensions with the West delayed its spread.
In sub-Saharan Africa, a child dies of malaria every 30 seconds
Today, derivatives of artemisinin, a compound extracted from sweet wormwood, offer the most effective antimalarial therapy available. Malaria parasites have never evolved resistance to it.
Like all drugs, artemisinin-based drugs have drawbacks: relatively expensive extraction - the plant takes about 18 months to grow; treatment regimens can be too long for the Third World and, although it can quickly kill 96 per cent of the parasites, it has to be combined with longer acting variants to be completely effective.
Dr Jonathan Vennerstrom and colleagues say in the journal Nature they have made a fast-acting synthetic counterpart to artemisinin in which many of those problems have been overcome.
Dubbed OZ, the drug has entered clinical trials on 48 people in Britain. Initial studies suggest it is well-tolerated in healthy volunteers. This new class of drug is "a huge breakthrough," said Dr Paul O'Neill, of Liverpool University.
It is being developed by Ranbaxy Laboratories in India after various studies around the world. Because OZ is a synthetic drug, its costs can be significantly reduced as industrial production is easier.
The drug will be tried on malaria patients in January. The non-profit public private partnership driving drug development, Medicines for Malaria Venture, said yesterday it could become the most potent weapon against drug-resistant malaria, which affects 40 per cent of the global population.
Standard cheap malaria drugs are failing as much as 80 per cent of the time as malaria parasites become more resistant to older drugs, such as chloroquine. Standard cheap medicines are rendered useless in sub-Saharan Africa where every 30 seconds, a child dies of malaria.
Prof Andrew Read, of Edinburgh University, welcomed the advance but added: "There is always great optimism when a new 'wonder drug' comes along yet malaria parasites are extremely adept at evolving drug resistance."
By Roger Highfield
(Filed: 19/08/2004)
A synthetic version of a drug used for more than 1,500 years in Chinese medicine is hailed today as a breakthrough in efforts to reduce the million deaths caused each year by malaria.
Treatment based on the Chinese herbal remedy qinghaosu was developed during Chairman Mao's Cultural Revolution but tensions with the West delayed its spread.
In sub-Saharan Africa, a child dies of malaria every 30 secondsToday, derivatives of artemisinin, a compound extracted from sweet wormwood, offer the most effective antimalarial therapy available. Malaria parasites have never evolved resistance to it.
Like all drugs, artemisinin-based drugs have drawbacks: relatively expensive extraction - the plant takes about 18 months to grow; treatment regimens can be too long for the Third World and, although it can quickly kill 96 per cent of the parasites, it has to be combined with longer acting variants to be completely effective.
Dr Jonathan Vennerstrom and colleagues say in the journal Nature they have made a fast-acting synthetic counterpart to artemisinin in which many of those problems have been overcome.
Dubbed OZ, the drug has entered clinical trials on 48 people in Britain. Initial studies suggest it is well-tolerated in healthy volunteers. This new class of drug is "a huge breakthrough," said Dr Paul O'Neill, of Liverpool University.
It is being developed by Ranbaxy Laboratories in India after various studies around the world. Because OZ is a synthetic drug, its costs can be significantly reduced as industrial production is easier.
The drug will be tried on malaria patients in January. The non-profit public private partnership driving drug development, Medicines for Malaria Venture, said yesterday it could become the most potent weapon against drug-resistant malaria, which affects 40 per cent of the global population.
Standard cheap malaria drugs are failing as much as 80 per cent of the time as malaria parasites become more resistant to older drugs, such as chloroquine. Standard cheap medicines are rendered useless in sub-Saharan Africa where every 30 seconds, a child dies of malaria.
Prof Andrew Read, of Edinburgh University, welcomed the advance but added: "There is always great optimism when a new 'wonder drug' comes along yet malaria parasites are extremely adept at evolving drug resistance."
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