Novartis Sends Malaria Drug to Tanzania

To mark Africa Malaria Day earlier this week, Novartis announced it delivered 4.7 million courses of its life-saving malaria drug, Coartem, to Tanzania, where malaria is the leading cause of death in both children and adults. The move is part of the company's effort to provide access to Coartem to patients living in malaria-endemic countries.

The company said it delivered 62 million treatments of Coartem last year to malaria-endemic countries in Africa, a seven-fold increase over the previous year. These treatments contributed to saving an estimated 200,000 lives, Novartis added.

Coartem is the first fixed-dose artemisinin-based combination therapy (ACT) with cure rates of up to 95 percent, even in areas of multidrug resistance. Tanzania designated Coartem as first-line therapy in its national malaria-control guidelines in 2004. In 2006, when the new treatment policy with Coartem was implemented in the country, Novartis delivered more than 8 million Coartem treatment courses to Tanzania.

An ACT is a combination of two or more drugs (one of which is an artemisinin derivative) that have different modes of action and different targets. ACTs have been found to be highly effective in treating malaria and their potential to delay resistance in areas of intense transmission is under investigation, according to Novartis.

Novartis said it is working with the Medicines for Malaria Venture to develop a new pediatric formulation of Coartem. The new formulation is expected to be introduced in 2008. In addition, the company is working to discover the next generation of malaria medicines, along with treatments for dengue and tuberculosis.