Anacor Pharmaceuticals and the institute for OneWorld Health (iOWH) announced the establishment of a joint research agreement to discover antibacterial compounds for treating shigellosis. Shigellosis, or bloody diarrhoea, is an infectious disease caused by the gram-negative bacterium Shigella. An estimated 80 to 165 million people worldwide are impacted by this disease annually, which is responsible for an estimated 600,000 deaths each year, mostly among children in the poorest countries. Current therapies are losing their effectiveness due to bacterial resistance, which demands the development of new medicines to ensure effective treatment against this deadly disease.

“We are proud to work with iOWH to potentially identify a new drug for shigellosis,” said David Perry, chief executive officer of Anacor Pharmaceuticals. “We have demonstrated that our boron-based chemistry platform and strength in antibacterial research has the potential to create new antibiotics, and we hope to leverage these to address a disease that affects over one hundred million people annually.”

“iOWH is committed to finding treatment for cholera, shigellosis and other diseases that claim the lives of so many infants and children across the world,” said Richard Chin, MD and CEO of OneWorld Health. “Working with Anacor brings us closer to saving the lives of the 1.5 million children who die from this treatable yet deadly disease every year.”

OneWorld Health received significant funding for this project from the Department for International Development (DfID) in the United Kingdom for research and development of medicines to treat diarrhoeal diseases. “The world urgently needs effective new treatments for diarrhoeal diseases, which are the second leading killer of children under the age of five in the developing world. Every year these avoidable diseases kill 1.5 million children — more deaths than malaria, AIDS and tuberculosis combined. Persistent diarrhoea also contributes to malnutrition. Britain is proud to support the work of iOWH to ensure lifesaving treatments are developed to prevent needless child deaths,” said Stephen O'Brien, DfID Minister for International Development.

iOWH has also received funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to develop medicines to treat diarrhoeal diseases, and has research collaborations with Roche and Novartis.

Anacor is a biopharmaceutical company focused on discovering, developing and commercializing novel small-molecule therapeutics derived from its boron chemistry platform. The company has discovered five clinical compounds which are currently in development, including its three lead programs: AN2690, a topical antifungal for the treatment of onychomycosis; AN2728, a topical anti-inflammatory PDE-4 inhibitor for the treatment of psoriasis; and GSK 2251052, or GSK ‘052 (formerly referred to as AN3365), a systemic antibiotic for the treatment of infections caused by Gram-negative bacteria, which has been licensed to GlaxoSmithKline under the companies' research and development agreement.

Neglected diseases are defined as diseases that disproportionately affect the world's poorest people, including tuberculosis or TB, malaria, visceral leishmaniasis, Chagas disease, human African trypanosomiasis or African sleeping sickness, and filarial worm diseases such as onchocerciasis and lymphatic filariasis.

The institute for OneWorld Health (iOWH) is a non-profit that develops safe, effective and affordable new medicines for people with infectious diseases in the developing world with emphasis on diseases that disproportionately affect children and currently focused on developing a treatment for children with cholera and other life threatening diarrhoeal diseases.