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DesignMedix gets $3m NIH grant to develop low-cost malaria drug

US-based biotech startup DesignMedix has received a grant of $3m from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to continue the development and manufacturing of a new anti-malarial drug.

The drug being developed is a low cost cure for drug-resistant malaria that is as safe as chloroquine, a frontline drug used for many years until rendered ineffective by drug resistance.

Malaria drug resistance is created by a mutation that causes rapid transport of the drug out of the malaria cells, rendering the drug ineffective.

The DesignMedix technology approach creates a new drug that inhibits the transport and overcomes the drug resistance.

DesignMedix president and COO Sandra Shotwell said each year, over 600,000 children under the age of five die of malaria.

"Our new drug will provide another weapon to target this deadly disease, which kills more young children than any other," Shotwell said.

The company will share the three-year grant with the chemistry lab of PSU professor David Peyton, who invented the technology and co-founded DesignMedix.

Three patents have been issued relating to the drug molecules, and the company has exclusive rights to develop the technology.

Currently, several malaria drugs are available from large multinational and Indian drug manufacturers.

Most of the existing therapies show drug resistance, and some cost up to tenfold more than the cost projected for DesignMedix’s drug.