Abstract
Schistosomiasis, one of 17 diseases deemed to be neglected by the World Health Organization, has received little attention from the biopharmaceutical industry. Due to this, only a handful of drugs have been developed to treat schistosomiasis, with only one, praziquantel, used in most endemic regions. Growing concern over resistance coupled with praziquantel's incomplete efficacy across all stages of the Schistosoma platyhelminth life cycle highlights the urgent need for new drugs. The WIPO Re:Search consortium is a platform whereupon biopharmaceutical company compounds are being repurposed to efficiently and cost-effectively develop new drugs for neglected diseases such as schistosomiasis. This article summarizes recent clinical-stage efforts to identify new antischistosomals and highlights biopharmaceutical company compounds with potential for repurposing to treat schistosomiasis.
Acknowledgements
The authors thank C Caffrey and MSD for their review and helpful suggestions. A background review of the current antischistosomal drug landscape was performed with the assistance of R Sriram, U Sheth and N Penumetcha (BVGH).
Financial & competing interests disclosure
J Dent, R Ramamoorthi and KM Graef are employees of BVGH. BVGH receives WIPO Re:Search sponsorship funding from Alnylam, Eisai, GlaxoSmithKline, MSD, Merck KGaA, Novartis, Pfizer, and Sanofi. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.
No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.