Oneworld Health and Aanaor Launches Research Collaboration To Develop New Anti-diarrheal Drugs

March 7, 2011 - PRLog -- South San Francisco and Palo Alto, CA, – The Institute for OneWorld Health (iOWH) and Anacor Pharmaceuticals  today announced the establishment of a joint research agreement to discover antibacterial compounds for treating shigellosis.  Shigellosis, or bloody diarrhea, is an infectious disease caused by the gram-negative bacterium Shigella.  An estimated 80 to 165 million people worldwide are impacted by this disease annually, which is responsible for an estimated 600,000 deaths each year, mostly among children in the poorest countries.  Current therapies are losing their effectiveness due to bacterial resistance, which demands the development of new medicines to ensure effective treatment against this deadly disease.
   
“We are proud to work with iOWH to potentially identify a new drug for shigellosis,” said David Perry, Chief Executive Officer of Anacor Pharmaceuticals.  “We have demonstrated that our boron-based chemistry platform and strength in antibacterial research has the potential to create new antibiotics, and we hope to leverage these to address a disease that affects over one hundred million people annually.”

“iOWH is committed to finding treatment for cholera, shigellosis and other diseases that claim the lives of so many infants and children across the world,” said Richard Chin, MD and CEO of iOWH “Working with Anacor brings us closer to saving the lives of the 1.5 million children who die from this treatable yet deadly disease every year.”

The iOWH received significant funding for this project from the Department for International Development (DfID) in the United Kingdom for research and development of medicines to treat diarrheal diseases.  “The world urgently needs effective new treatments for diarrheal diseases, which are the second leading killer of children under the age of five in the developing world.  Every year these avoidable diseases kill 1.5 million children – more deaths than malaria, AIDS and tuberculosis combined.  Persistent diarrhea also contributes to malnutrition.  Britain is proud to support the work of iOWH to ensure lifesaving treatments are developed to prevent needless child deaths,” said Stephen O’Brien, DfID Minister for International Development.  

iOWH has also received funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to develop medicines to treat diarrheal diseases, and has research collaborations with Roche and Novartis.

About Anacor Pharmaceuticals
Anacor is a biopharmaceutical company focused on discovering, developing and commercializing novel small-molecule therapeutics derived from its boron chemistry platform. Anacor has discovered and is developing five clinical compounds, including its three lead programs: AN2690, a topical antifungal for the treatment of onychomycosis; AN2728, a topical anti-inflammatory PDE-4 inhibitor for the treatment of psoriasis; and GSK 2251052, or GSK ‘052 (formerly referred to as AN3365), a systemic antibiotic for the treatment of infections caused by Gram-negative bacteria, which has been licensed to GlaxoSmithKline under the companies' research and development agreement. In addition, Anacor is developing AN2718 as a topical antifungal product candidate for the treatment of onychomycosis and skin fungal infections, and AN2898 as a topical anti-inflammatory product candidate for the treatment of psoriasis and atopic dermatitis.   For more information visit http://www.anacor.com.

About Anacor’s Neglected Disease Initiative
Neglected diseases are defined as diseases that disproportionately affect the world’s poorest people, including tuberculosis or TB, malaria, visceral leishmaniasis, Chagas disease, human African trypanosomiasis or African sleeping sickness, and filarial worm diseases such as onchocerciasis and lymphatic filariasis. Despite the fact that these diseases cause significant morbidity and mortality worldwide, and that the current standards of care are difficult to administer, have significant toxicities and are increasingly becoming less effective due to the development of resistance, there has been little investment in developing new therapies for these diseases due to the absence of a reasonable expectation of a financial return.

In recent years, a number of foundations and governments have created public-private partnerships to address this gap by funding promising technologies that may result in new drugs. In December 2007, Anacor established a partnership with the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative, or DNDi, to develop new therapeutics for African sleeping sickness, visceral leishmaniasis and Chagas disease. In May 2009, Anacor established a collaboration with the Global Alliance for TB Drug Development. In April 2010, Anacor entered into a research collaboration with the Medicines for Malaria Venture to identify lead compounds for the treatment and prophylaxis of malaria.  And in November 2010, Anacor entered into a collaboration with UCSF and New York Blood Center to discover drugs to treat River Blindness.

About iOWH
The Institute for OneWorld Health (iOWH) is a non-profit that develops safe, effective and affordable new medicines for people with infectious diseases in the developing world with emphasis on diseases that disproportionately affect children. iOWH is currently focused on developing a treatment for children with cholera and other life threatening diarrheal diseases. IOWH also has programs developing medicines to treat visceral leishmaniasis (VL) and malaria. iOWH’s VL program has successfully developed paromomycin - a safe, effective, and affordable treatment of visceral leishmaniasis that reduces the cost of therapy of this fatal disease by more than forty percent. iOWH has also successfully developed the science that will be used to lower the cost of artemisinin, an important ingredient in malaria drugs.

In addition to its current drug development programs, OWH works to ensure that the treatments iOWH develops are available and acceptable to at-risk patients at an affordable cost via private and public sector markets. The Access Team aims to expand drug availability to patients by conducting market research into the barriers to access and evaluating delivery models designed to expand access.

iOWH is headquartered in South San Francisco, California, USA with offices in New Delhi and Patna, India.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release may contain forward-looking statements that relate to future events, including identifying a potential new drug for shigellosis, and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual levels of activity, performance or achievement to differ materially from those expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. These statements reflect the views of Anacor as of the date of this press release with respect to future events and, except as required by law, it undertakes no obligation to update or revise publicly any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise after the date of this press release.