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Coartem® Dispersible antimalarial for children

MMV's Research and Development - The Power of Partnership

Photo by Anna Wang, VP, Public Affairs, MMV

On 27 January 2009, the Swiss not-for-profit organization Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV) together with Novartis launched Coartem® Dispersible – a new child-friendly antimalarial medicine which has been clinically proven to be effective in curing malaria in children. Designed especially for children, this is the first pediatric malaria cure that is dispersible, sweet-tasting, and has stringent regulatory approval. Until now, many healthcare workers and parents have had to crush bitter-tasting antimalarial tablets for their children to swallow. Coartem Dispersible tablets enable parents to give a pleasant-tasting malaria medicine to their children more easily and in the process, ensure that they receive full effective doses. A clinical study reported in The Lancet by Dr Salim Abdulla of the Ifakara Health Institute in Tanzania showed that Coartem Dispersible provides a high cure rate of 97.8%, which is comparable to that of Coartem (98.5%). Investigators also reported that it had a good safety profile1.

"Getting babies to take bitter malaria medicines is always difficult, but now mothers in Africa can easily give their children a sweet-tasting and effective cure which will save their lives," said Dr. Chris Hentschel, President and CEO of Medicines for Malaria Venture. "This could not have happened without the support of our funders, who are all committed to malaria innovation and one day, eliminating this deadly disease."

 

Click to view video about Coartem® Dispersible antimalarial for children filmed at the Kenya African Centre for Clinical Trials, Kisumu in mid-January 2009.

 

As part of its ongoing commitment to patients and health workers, Novartis and MMV also provide malaria case management educational programs, which include hands-on training for local healthcare workers, customized training manuals, and user-friendly packaging to ensure that Coartem Dispersible is properly used and to improve patient compliance. Like Coartem, Coartem Dispersible will be provided to the public sector without profit to benefit those people most in need in the developing world.

In addition to approval by Swissmedic, the Swiss regulatory authority, Coartem Dispersible is approved by 17 regulatory authorities in Africa. These countries include Benin, Burkina Faso, Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon, Ghana, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Tanzania, Togo, and Zambia. Coartem Dispersible is being launched in Africa starting 16 February 2009.

To support this project and the largest malaria R&D pipeline in history, MMV receives funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Irish Aid, Netherlands Minister Development Co-Operation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Spanish Government, the Swiss Government, UK DFID, USAID, US National Institute of Health, the Wellcome Trust, WHO/RBM, the World Bank and the ExxonMobil Foundation.

References

1 Salim et al., Efficacy and safety of artemether-lumefantrine dispersible tablet in African infants and children with uncomplicated malaria: a randomised, investigator-blinded, multi-centre comparison with the crushed commercial tablet; The Lancet (2008) www.thelancet.com; published online October 15, 2008 DOI:10.1016/S0140-6736(08)61492-0