The sweet wormwood plant, Artemisia annua, has until now been the only source of artemisinin. Drug-makers convert the natural product into derivatives that are more easily taken up by the body, and then combine them with other drugs to prevent the malaria parasite fromdeveloping resistance. Since 2005, when ACTs became the preferred treatment of the World Health Organization (WHO), governments and health policy-makers have encouraged farmers in China, Vietnam and elsewhere to grow A. annua to meet rising demand. But the dependence on erratic donor funding, along with a production cycle that can take a year and a half from planting to drug production, has made it difficult to manage that supply. Last year, a bumper crop of A. annua and fears of declining funding sent artemisinin prices plummeting (see ‘The cost of progress’).
Yeast make ACT production faster and more manageable. The microbes are not affected by weather, and they churn out artemisinic acid that is readily turned into semi-synthetic artemisinin, which Sanofi or other makers can convert into ACT ingredients such as artesunate. The whole process takes less than three months. “You get an order, you fire up the bioreactors, and you ship it out,” says Keasling. Sanofi hopes to get WHO approval for semi-synthetic artemisinin in the coming months, says Ponni Subbiah, a drug-development programme leader at PATH, a global health organization based in Seattle, Washington, which has funded and coordinated the development of semi-synthetic artemisinin.
The sweet wormwood plant, Artemisia annua, has until now been the only source of artemisinin. Drug-makers convert the natural product into derivatives that are more easily taken up by the body, and then combine them with other drugs to prevent the malaria parasite fromdeveloping resistance. Since 2005, when ACTs became the preferred treatment of the World Health Organization (WHO), governments and health policy-makers have encouraged farmers in China, Vietnam and elsewhere to grow A. annua to meet rising demand. But the dependence on erratic donor funding, along with a production cycle that can take a year and a half from planting to drug production, has made it difficult to manage that supply. Last year, a bumper crop of A. annua and fears of declining funding sent artemisinin prices plummeting (see ‘The cost of progress’).
Yeast make ACT production faster and more manageable. The microbes are not affected by weather, and they churn out artemisinic acid that is readily turned into semi-synthetic artemisinin, which Sanofi or other makers can convert into ACT ingredients such as artesunate. The whole process takes less than three months. “You get an order, you fire up the bioreactors, and you ship it out,” says Keasling. Sanofi hopes to get WHO approval for semi-synthetic artemisinin in the coming months, says Ponni Subbiah, a drug-development programme leader at PATH, a global health organization based in Seattle, Washington, which has funded and coordinated the development of semi-synthetic artemisinin.
การแปล กรุณารอสักครู่..
