CRIMALDDI: a prioritized research agenda to expedite the discovery of new anti-malarial drugs

Steve A Ward,Ian C Boulton

doi:10.1186/1475-2875-12-395

Abstract

The CRIMALDDI Consortium has been a three-year project funded by the EU Framework Seven Programme. It aimed to develop a prioritized set of recommendations to speed up anti-malarial drug discovery research and contribute to the setting of the global research agenda. It has attempted to align thinking on the high priority issues and then to develop action plans and strategies to address these issues. Through a series of facilitated and interactive workshops, it has concluded that these priorities can be grouped under five key themes: attacking artemisinin resistance; creating and sharing community resources; delivering enabling technologies; exploiting high throughput screening hits quickly; and, identifying novel targets. Recommendations have been prioritized into one of four levels: quick wins; removing key roadblocks to future progress; speeding-up drug discovery; and, nice to have (but not essential). Use of this prioritization allows efforts and resources to be focused on the lines of work that will contribute most to expediting anti-malarial drug discovery. Estimates of the time and finances required to implement the recommendations have also been made, along with indications of when recommendations within each theme will make an impact. All of this has been collected into an indicative roadmap that, it is hoped, will guide decisions about the direction and focus of European anti-malarial drug discovery research and contribute to the setting of the global research agenda.

Highlights

Malaria remains a major cause of mortality and morbidity throughout the developing world, especially in subSaharan Africa, and in India, Latin America, and Southeast Asia
Starting with the launch of the Roll Back Malaria Partnership in 1998 [2], there has been increasing recognition of the unacceptable social and economic impacts malaria makes on affected countries, as well as the suffering it brings to patients and their families
If the ambitious goal of eradicating malaria is to be achieved in the foreseeable future, a series of new drug tools will be required to meet the new challenges

Summary

Introduction

Malaria remains a major cause of mortality and morbidity throughout the developing world, especially in subSaharan Africa, and in India, Latin America, and Southeast Asia. In 2010, there were still 216 million cases and 655,000 deaths attributed to the disease [1] It is well established as a key challenge for the global community and a focus for international development, health funding, and assistance. The GMAP emphasized the need for a proper research and development agenda to develop the new tools which would be required to meet all the challenges. This led to the establishment of the MalERA Initiative – a two-year programme to develop a research agenda across all the disciplines and approaches relevant to tackling the disease. The importance of drug treatment to meeting the elimination (and eradication) challenge has been recognized from the outset

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Conclusion