Immtech Receives $5.1 Million for African Sleeping Sickness Trials

Immtech Pharmaceuticals has received $5.1 million from a scientific consortium led by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) to develop drugs for fighting African sleeping sickness and leishmania.

This grant is part of the $22.6 million the Gates Foundation gave the UNC-led consortium in 2006 to fund Phase III trials using Immtech’s pafuramidine maleate to treat Stage 1 of African sleeping sickness.

Pafuramidine is being tested at six African sites. African sleeping sickness is spread by tsetse flies and threatens approximately 60 million people in sub-Saharan Africa. If approved, pafuramidine will be the first oral drug for the disease, Immtech said.

Pafuramidine is in a pivotal Phase III trial for pneumocystis pneumonia and also is being developed for malaria prevention and treatment.