Funding Boost for Disease Research at Dundee

A project researching into new drugs for neglected diseases by the University of Dundee and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) has received £7.9 million from The Wellcome Trust over the next five years. Neglected diseases, including visceral or cutaneous leishmaniasis and Chagas’ disease, cause substantial suffering and an estimated 60,000 deaths annually world-wide. In December 2016 £13.6 million was awarded by the Trust to establish the Wellcome Centre for Anti-Infectives Research at Dundee.

Professor Paul Wyatt, Director of the Wellcome Centre at the University, said, “The development of effective and safe drugs for leishmaniasis and Chagas’ disease will save many lives and improve the quality of life and economies within the developing world. The continuing unmet medical need is caused by the current therapies being not fit for purpose, recent clinical trials failures, sparse drug discovery pipelines across the world and there is general agreement that treatment with a combination of drugs is required for these diseases.

“In partnership with GSK we have established the broad range of expertise required to discover these much-needed drugs. The team combines world renowned parasitology, extensive experience developing drug molecules that can kill the parasites and the substantial expertise and infrastructure required to develop drug candidates suitable for clinical trials.

“This funding from Wellcome is a vital boost to us achieving our five-year goal of producing three new drug candidates suitable for clinical trials in leishmaniasis and Chagas’ disease. We are already making very strong progress in finding possible drugs to treat visceral leishmaniasis, with two candidates funded under a previous Wellcome award currently in the pre-clinical stage of testing which we hope will prove successful.”

Steve Caddick, Wellcome’s Director of Innovation said, “Neglected tropical diseases have a devastating impact on more than one billion people worldwide - many of whom are living in extreme poverty. Wellcome is committed to working with partners to develop new treatments and we are delighted to announce support for the dedicated team of drug discovery experts at Dundee.”