On April 24, 2015, the Bay Area World Malaria Day Symposium, co-sponsored by PATH, University of California, Davis, and Zagaya, was held on the Clark Kerr campus at University of California, Berkeley. The day was composed of three main sessions: research and exploration; implementation of campaigns, programs, and policies; and technical innovation. Keynote speakers included Ashley Birkett, director of PATH’s Malaria Vaccine Initiative, and Dr. Patrick E. Duffy, chief of the laboratory of malaria immunology and vaccinology at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health. Following the symposium, PATH hosted an informal networking reception on the Clark Kerr campus.

All four clinical sites—New Jersey and New York in the United States, Cape Town in South Africa, and Harare in Zimbabwe—are now active and recruiting participants, with 37 women enrolled as of June 22. The trial—HPTN 076—will compare the safety and acceptability of intramuscular injections of rilpivirine (TMC 278) long-acting to placebo injections given once every eight weeks over a 10-month period among sexually active, HIV-uninfected women. For more information about HPTN 076, see Clinicaltrials.gov using the identifier NCT02165202.

In collaboration with Save the Children, University of Washington, Malawi Ministry of Health, and Malawi College of Medicine, we are working to build the evidence base for appropriate and effective treatment of childhood pneumonia in Africa. Later this year, following completion of the ethical approval process, we will be launching two double-blinded, randomized, non-inferiority clinical trials to compare the effectiveness of placebo versus three days of treatment with amoxicillin dispersible tablets (DT) for fast-breathing pneumonia, and three versus five days amoxicillin DT for chest-indrawing pneumonia among children 2 to 59 months of age.

A few months ago, we announced that the first batches of malaria drugs (Sanofi’s Artesunate Amodiaquine Winthrop® or ASAQ) made with artesunate derived from new semisynthetic artemisinin (ssART) began reaching endemic countries in Africa. Since then, approximately 16 million ASAQ treatments made using semisynthetic material have been shipped to 17 countries across sub-Saharan Africa. Sustained production of ssART and its smart integration into the market paves the way for artemisinin to be readily available for development and deployment of lifesaving malaria treatments.

Leading up to World Malaria Day in April, our team joined the #DefeatMalaria global campaign led by Roll Back Malaria. Through a coordinated social media campaign and blog series, individuals and organizations, including Medicines for Malaria Venture, Malaria No More, and PATH, commemorated historic strides worldwide, calling for sustained investment to further accelerate progress toward elimination. Catch up on the blog series on the Roll Back Malaria website and read “The end of malaria is within reach” by Dr. Kent Campbell, director of PATH’s newly formed Malaria Center of Excellence.

Complex, rewarding, innovative, challenging—we asked our staff to pause and reflect on what drug development represents to them. Read more responses from our team and learn about the process of developing a new drug on our blog.