Press Releases

Institute for OneWorld Health Press Statement on Nature Article Regarding Antimalarial Drug Precursor Artemisinic Acid In Engineered Yeast

- April 12, 2006

The Institute for OneWorld Health is engaged in a unique drug development project to ensure consistent, affordable supplies of artemisinin, a key component of Artemisinin-Based Combination Therapies (ACTs), used in the treatment of malaria. ACTs are currently the most effective treatment for malaria, and they are recommended as the treatment of choice by the World Health Organization (WHO). However, the cost of artemisinin-based drugs makes them inaccessible to millions of people in the developing world.

In 2004, the Institute for OneWorld Health received a $43 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to create a unique three-way partnership between the Institute for OneWorld Health, UC Berkeley and Amyris Biotechnologies. The goal of the partnership is to significantly reduce the cost of artemisinin, a key precursor in the production of ACTs, by creating a microbially-derived precursor to compliment the existing plant derived product. The key scientific challenge facing the project is creating a microbe that can make sufficient amounts of artemisinic acid to allow scientists to ultimately produce artemisinin and subsequently artesunate or other artemisinin derivatives in commercial scale quantities.

A report in the April 13 issue of Nature describes a recent technical achievement resulting from work on the project. UC Berkeley Professor Jay Keasling worked with Amyris Biotechnologies to take his previous research on bio-engineered microbes to the next stage. The recent Nature letter describes how the antimalarial drug precursor artemisinic acid was produced in engineered yeast. This achievement is an early proof of concept that the biosynthetic manufacturing strategy can be achieved at the laboratory scale. However, several challenges remain as the yield of artemisinic acid would need to be improved several hundred fold to be economically acceptable for large-scale manufacturing. The ongoing research will focus on improving the yield and optimizing the strain for industrial use. Although an important technical milestone, after the fermentation process of artemisinic acid is completed, the chemical synthesis of artemisinin will require three to four additional steps to achieve the long-term goal of artemisinin synthesis.

"The team at UC Berkeley and Amyris have done a great job moving this important project forward," said Victoria Hale, founder and CEO of OneWorld Health. "We still have a long way to go, but this puts us one step closer to a low-cost treatment for malaria."

OneWorld Health, as the product development partner, is responsible for the drug development process necessary to transfer the research and laboratory scale development work into a large scale manufacturing plan. This includes developing a commercialization strategy based on a thorough understanding of the worldwide regulatory requirements and an analysis of the current ACT manufacturing supply-chain and distribution models. In addition, OneWorld Health is also conducting a risk-benefit analysis on the effects of using artemisinin derivatives in malaria-endemic regions. By leveraging the promise of synthetic biology, IOWH and its partners seek to dramatically reduce the cost of antimalarials for the people who most need them.

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