Infectious diseases dominate Nobel Prize awards for medicine
pharmafile | October 8, 2015 | News story | Manufacturing and Production, Research and Development | Nobel Prize, artemisinin, ivermectin, malaria, mectizan, river blindness
Pharma researchers have been awarded the 2015 Nobel Prize for their work on a river blindness treatment, along with work leading to the discovery of a gold-standard anti-malaria drug.
Former MSD research scientist Dr William Campbell shares the prize for physiology or medicine with Satoshi Omura. Both worked on the discovery of avermectin, which led to MSD’s development of Mectizan (ivermectin), a treatment for river blindness.
The disease, which is also known as onchocerciasis, is an eye and skin disease caused by a worm that is transmitted to humans through the bite of a blackfly. These flies breed in fast-flowing streams and rivers, increasing the risk of irreversible blindness and disfigurative skin diseases to individuals living nearby.
The disease occurs mostly in Africa but also in Latin America and Yemen. In some West African communities, about half of men over the age of 40 years had been blinded by the disease.
Kenneth Frazier, chairman and chief executive of MSD says: “We are particularly proud of our colleague Dr Campbell whose innovation, passion and dedication to fighting diseases during his 30-year career at MSD enabled the development of Mectizan.
“Through our Mectizan donation program we have been working with partners for nearly three decades to make this medicine available, free of charge, to all those affected by river blindness. At MSD, we remain committed to bringing the best that our science and innovation have to offer to solve the world’s global health challenges.”
Campbell and Omura share the prize with Youyou Tu, for her work leading to the discovery of the anti-malaria compound artemisinin, which forms the basis of combination therapies against the mosquito-borne disease. She volunteered to be the first human subject during clinical trials.
Since 2000, more than 1 billion artemisinin-based treatment courses have been administered to malaria patients, according to the World Health Organization, contributing to the successful control of Malaria in several endemic countries.
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