Novartis to partner with OneWorld Health to develop diarrhea drug

"Swiss drug company Novartis AG and the Institute for OneWorld Health, a nonprofit group, will announce this week a partnership to discover drugs for a type of diarrhea that kills about 1.6 million children each year in the developing world," the Wall Street Journal reports.

Though fluid treatments to prevent dehydration have helped "sharply cut the number of deaths" from secretory diarrhea in recent years "additional treatments are desperately needed, Richard Chin, chief executive of OneWorld Health, said in a phone interview," the newspaper writes. As part of the partnership, ten Novartis scientists will first sift through drugs candidates, before "pass[ing] along any promising candidates to OneWorld Health for further testing."

The newspaper writes: "OneWorld Health, based in San Francisco, has been working on secretory diarrhea since 2006, using a $47 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The group already has a research partnership with Swiss drug company Roche Holding AG, which has allowed the nonprofit group to scan Roche’s library of experimental drugs for candidates that might work against diarrhea" (Whalen, 7/14).


Kaiser Health NewsThis article was reprinted from khn.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.

Comments

The opinions expressed here are the views of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of News Medical.
Post a new comment
Post

While we only use edited and approved content for Azthena answers, it may on occasions provide incorrect responses. Please confirm any data provided with the related suppliers or authors. We do not provide medical advice, if you search for medical information you must always consult a medical professional before acting on any information provided.

Your questions, but not your email details will be shared with OpenAI and retained for 30 days in accordance with their privacy principles.

Please do not ask questions that use sensitive or confidential information.

Read the full Terms & Conditions.

You might also like...
Asthma associated with memory issues in children