DNDi Receives $25.7M from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to Develop New Medicines for Neglected Diseases

12 December, Geneva, Switzerland: The Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi) has received a USD 25.7 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to research and develop new medicines to treat human African trypanosomiasis (HAT), also known as sleeping sickness, and visceral leishmaniasis (VL).

“The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation grant will help DNDi fill critical gaps in the HAT and VL drug development pipelines by supporting our lead optimization drug discovery programs for HAT and VL, which will in turn fuel our drug development projects,” stated Dr. Bernard Pecoul, Executive Director of DNDi. “With the goal of providing better, low-cost treatments, we are intensifying neglected diseases research and are endeavoring to rekindle the hopes of the many people who suffer from these diseases in the poorest regions of the world.”

The grant, to be disbursed to DNDi over five years, will provide critical funding for the research and development of new drug candidates for HAT and VL. DNDi will foster the development of the drug candidates through the preclinical stages and select one lead candidate for each disease to advance into Phase I human clinical trials.

“The pledge of $25.7M highlights the urgent need to accelerate R&D for neglected diseases,” remarked Dr. Shing Chang, Director of Research & Development at DNDi. “This important commitment to HAT and VL drug discovery will serve to encourage research into new, innovative treatment options for these diseases.”

“Far too little R&D is devoted to neglected diseases such as trypanosomiasis and visceral leishmaniasis, which threaten millions of people in the developing world but are virtually unheard of in rich countries,” said Dr. Regina Rabinovich, Director of Infectious Diseases Development at the Gates Foundation. “By helping to close this research gap, DNDi is bringing us closer to the day when the word ‘neglected’ no longer applies to these diseases.”

For more information, please consult http://www.dndi.org or contact:

Ann-Marie Sevcsik at amsevcsik@dndi.org or +41 (0)79 814 9147.