The primary objective of the IVCC is to develop a new range of public health products to enable the vector control programmes to control the vectors in a manner that reduces disease transmission. In order to achieve this IVCC has engaged the agrochemical industry in a hitherto unheard of effort to deliver new vector control products.
IVCC now has projects with 6 major commodity chemical or formulation companies representing all the major players in the field of public health insecticide R & D, and 4 of the 6 largest agrochemical companies.
The IVCC has defined two portfolios because they operate on very distinct timeframes and cost implications. The targets of these two portfolios are:
The Formulation and Re-purposing Portfolio
- A new range of long lasting indoor residual spray formulations that maximises the number of insecticide classes available to allow vector control programmes to manage resistance. This should include the 4 insecticide classes currently available for vector control and any existing available agrochemical insecticides that could be re-purposed for vector control.
- At least one new long lasting insecticidal net that contains an insecticide with a different mode of action from pyrethroids.
The New Active Ingredient Portfolio
- At least three new vector control insecticide active ingredients with novel modes of action that are not affected by known insecticide resistance mechanisms.
Development of resistance is an evolutionary inevitability. To ensure robustness of chemical control and its contribution to the elimination target, it will be necessary to maintain the commercial availability of at least three groups of different chemistry/MoAs (“the chemical treadmill”). The establishment of pipeline programmes with agrochemical companies gives us the critical means to do this, by a) filling the gap due to the lack of inventive focus on insecticides over the last 30 years, by historic data-mining/retrospective screening component, and then b) maintaining research and development focus on the insecticide target based on new synthetic programmes within the companies concerned.