Chagas Disease

Early stage funding and donations of intellectual property allowed the Institute for OneWorld Health to pursue new drug technologies to treat Chagas disease, a leading cause of heart failure among the poor in Latin America. In 2002, Celera Genomics donated the compound K777, a cysteine protease inhibitor, to OneWorld Health for the treatment of parasitic disease. In 2003, OneWorld Health licensed intellectual property related to a series of sterol biosynthesis inhibitors from Yale University and the University of Washington.

With funding supplied by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, preclinical studies were carried out on K777 and a manufacturing process developed. Unfortunately, these preclinical studies suggested that K777 was hepatotoxic. The manufacturing process was also exceedingly complex and fraught with scale up issues. For these reasons, work on the compound was abandoned and the license rights to develop it were returned to Celera and the ownership rights to the manufacturing process were transferred to Celera in 2005.

In April 2007, OneWorld Health decided to focus its attention on its three major disease programs: visceral leishmaniasis, malaria and diarrhea. It has terminated the Yale University/University of Washington license.

While K777 activities were ongoing, OneWorld Health also conducted a landscape analysis of Chagas disease. The purpose of this analysis was to:

• Characterize the nature of Chagas disease, its pathogen and its vectors;
• Describe the prevalence and incidence of Chagas disease in Latin America;
• Relate the present control and prevention measures for the disease;
• Stimulate interest in improving prevention, diagnosis and treatment of Chagas disease; and
• Identify a cost-effective strategy to reduce the incidence and prevalence of Chagas disease.

In terminating drug development for the treatment of Chagas disease, OneWorld Health wishes to remain as helpful as it can to those working in the Chagas disease field. Therefore, we are sharing our Chagas disease landscape analysis with interested parties. This report is not intended to be a comprehensive monograph on Chagas disease or its treatment; however, the report contains a review of the status of the disease through 2005 (with minor updates to 2007) and assesses possible policy and treatment options. We hope that you find it useful.