EU Funds provide backbone for Malaria drug solution development

A substantial multi-million award from the European Union (EU) Malaria Fund will enable University of Glasgow spin-out Keltic Pharma Therapeutics Ltd to extend its world-leading malaria research into development of a drug form that holds potential for the cure and spread of the disease.

Company co-founders Professor Andrew Tobin, Professor Graeme Milligan and Dr Andrew Jamieson will build on inhibiting, or stopping activity of the recently discovered protein PfCLK3(1), which is essential for the survival of the malaria parasite.

The EU Malaria Fund is a public-private partnership between the European Union, International Organisations, corporations, and organised civic society, providing a novel funding instrument to address market failures in infectious diseases with significant relevance to public health globally.

Andrew Tobin, Professor of Molecular Pharmacology at Glasgow, said: “To receive this funding from the European Union is fantastic for Keltic Pharma and the University of Glasgow, as it will allow us to develop a drug for the treatment of malaria – an outcome from my malaria research that was only a dream ten years ago.”

Professor Graeme Milligan, Gardiner Chair of Biochemistry at the University added: “This EU funding will allow us to progress our very exciting basic research programmes studying GPCRs into drug discovery for the treatment of a number of human diseases.”

Dr Andrew Jamieson, Reader in Chemical Biology at the University’s School of Chemistry said: “As an academic chemist, it is a real joy to be able to be a founder of a company that can take advantage of our academic discoveries and turn them into new medicines.”

The company comprises of the academic team at Glasgow and a Business team based in Dublin.

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