GSK and Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative (DNDi) have been working together to develop new therapeutics for NTDs including leishmaniasis and chagas disease. Patients urgently need better treatments due to limited efficacy, the emergence of parasite resistance, severe side effects and toxicity of existing treatments, and challenges regarding non-suitable routes of administration.

Under a research collaboration agreement, GSK and DNDi are jointly exploring hits identified through GSK’s internal high throughput screening efforts against Leishmania donovani, Trypanosoma cruzi and Trypanosoma brucei. The partners will facilitate publication of the results to ensure access to the wider community of researchers focusing on NTDs.

In April 2017, the original agreement was expanded to accelerate the progression of two GSK assets against Visceral Leishmaniasis: GSK3186899/DDD853651 and GSK3494245/DDD1305143.

These two compounds were discovered by GSK in collaboration with the Drug Discovery Unit (DDU) at the University of Dundee, following some co-funding by the Wellcome Trust.

In 2018, GSK, DNDi and the University of Dundee also formed a separate three-way collaboration for researching, characterising and progressing NTD treatments for leishmaniasis and Chagas disease up to candidate selection. The focus of the collaboration by the teams of scientists at GSK, Dundee and DNDi is on designing, making, and testing new drug molecules, with a view to developing new pre-clinical candidates suitable for possible further development into safe, effective, and affordable treatments. As a part of the collaboration, the three organisations will pool their knowledge, chemical starting points, and resources to more quickly identify the most promising new drug candidates.