Tokyo, October 30, 2017 - Astellas Pharma Inc. (President and CEO: Yoshihiko Hatanaka, 'Astellas' ) today announced that it has entered into a screening collaboration agreement with Medicines for Malaria Venture ('MMV'), a leading product development partnership (PDP) in the field of antimalarial drug research, development and delivery. This collaboration will be funded by the Global Health Innovative Technology Fund ('GHIT Fund') and MMV.

Under this agreement, Astellas will provide its library of tens of thousands of compounds, and MMV will work with Prof. Vicky Avery at Griffiths University in Brisbane to screen the library for compounds that demonstrate the potential to become new antimalarial drugs.

Malaria is a life-threatening disease caused by parasites that are transmitted to people through the bite of an infected female Anopheles mosquito. In 2015, more than 200 million people fell ill with malaria, and more than 420,000 people died of this disease. In 2016, 91 countries were malaria-endemic, with the WHO Africa region accounting for over 90% of all malaria cases and malaria-related deaths. In addition, resistance to the current gold standard antimalarial drug, artemisinin, is threatening the ability to control malaria in the Greater Mekong subregion.

This situation poses a serious problem and innovative next-generation antimalarial drugs are urgently needed.

The GHIT Fund is an international non-profit organization aimed at leveraging Japanese expertise and capability for life-saving health innovations, including drugs, vaccines and diagnostics, to combat HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, and neglected tropical diseases prevalent in the developing world. Astellas has supported the GHIT Fund for five years since its foundation, and has also committed to supporting it for the next five years (FY2018-FY2022) together with a cross-sector group of funding partners.

Astellas will continue to resolve Access to Health issues through commitment to this screening collaboration as well as continuous participation in the GHIT Fund.

Astellas Pharma Inc. published this content on 30 October 2017 and is solely responsible for the information contained herein.
Distributed by Public, unedited and unaltered, on 30 October 2017 01:07:04 UTC.

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