Promising Drug, Closer to Market

Bitten by the ‘Kissing Bug’

Lloyd Dunlap

November 2009

Drug Discovery News

This article provides an extremely current rationale for the need to develop a treatment for Chagas’ disease, and it discusses a newly emerging pharmaceutical. According to the World Health Organization, this potentially fatal condition, which is endemic to 21 Latin American countries, has been appearing in other regions of the world as population mobility continues to increase. This increased incidence of Chagas disease presents a potential threat of further spread through blood transfusions, organ transplants, and congenital infection.

Thus the treatment of this disease has become an issue of vital importance. Prompted by these recent trends, Eisai Co. Ltd. has partnered with the Drugs for Neglected Disease Initiative (DNDi) to develop a novel pharmaceutical treatment that is currently in late stages of the approval process. Several years ago, the former company produced ravuconazole as an antifungal agent, and it was found to have potentially therapeutic effects for Chagas’ disease. Eisai Co. Ltd. continued to develop the drug while DNDi conducted Phase I trials. At this point, the two have collaborated to enter final testing and potentially affordable marketing of E1224, a pro-drug form of ravuconazole that is metabolized to the active form upon administration.

If final testing of the drug yields efficacious results, the companies intend to sell it at a cheaper price in endemic countries and a more expensive price in non-endemic areas. Hopefully this two-tiered pricing scheme will make the drug most affordable where it is most needed, while still allowing the drug companies to produce it in a sustainable fashion.

http://www.drugdiscoverynews.com/index.php?newsarticle=3352