South Africa’s University of Cape Town (UCT) has signed a research agreement with Germany’s Merck to co-develop a new R&D platform aimed at identifying new lead programs for potential treatments against malaria, with the potential to expand it to other tropical diseases.
Combining Merck’s R&D expertise and the drug discovery capabilities of the UCT Drug Discovery and Development Centre, H3D, the collaboration will conduct drug discovery research with the goal of developing anti-malarial drug candidates using Merck’s compound library.
Merck has a dedicated global health R&D group working to address key unmet medical needs related to infectious diseases, such as schistosomiasis and malaria, with a focus on pediatric populations in developing countries. Its approach is based on public-private partnerships and collaborations with leading global health institutions and organisations in both developed and developing countries.
“The vision of H3D is to be the leading organisation for integrated drug discovery and development on the African continent. Working with partners like Merck is critical to build up a comprehensive pipeline to tackle malaria and related infectious diseases. We look forward to working with the Merck team to set up a solid drug discovery platform, with an initial focus on malaria,” said Prof Kelly Chibale, director of the H3D centre, University of Cape Town.
