Malaria lead generation strategy

Malaria is a disease caused by the apicomplexan parasite, Plasmodium, and there are five species that are known to infect humans Plasmodium falciparum, P. vivax, P. ovale, P. malariae, and P. knowelsi [7]. In 2012, the WHO estimated that 3.4 billion people globally were at risk of a malaria infection, there were 207 million cases and 627 000 deaths with the majority, 77%, being children under the age of five [8]. 

For each of these TCPs, a test cascade has been established that captures the phase Ila, phase Ib, and predinical (candidate, late lead, early lead, validated hit, and screening hit) criteria. Critically, the predinical assays are as closely aligned to the chnical end points as possible, in terms of human-relevant tissue and pathogen. However, as is true for P. vivax in particular, the biology is not sufficiently mature and surrogate assays are commonly used because of the complexities of accessing parasite biomass. The specific test cascades have been documented in several key articles [15,16]. 

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