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IVCC Hosts 2019 Stakeholder Conference 7th October 2019

Under the conference theme, ‘Partnering for Impact’, IVCC hosted its first stakeholder conference in three years in its home town of Liverpool on 19th September.   Ahead of the full day conference at Liverpool’s Town Hall, 150 guests were invited a very special pre-conference dinner at Liverpool’s iconic Anglican Cathedral where they were able to meet and network over dinner whilst being treated to a stunning performance from mezzo soprano Jennifer Johnston, artist in residence at Liverpool’s philharmonic orchestra.

IVCC was delighted to welcome Dr Ruth Shakespeare, former medical director of the Mulanjee Mission hospital in Malawi, as the keynote speaker.  Dr Ruth’s honest and very real testimony to the challenges of dealing with malaria on the ground grabbed everyone’s attention.  Dr Ruth spoke passionately how her hospital ward can become overrun with malaria cases if there is no adequate vector control support in the local area, often with more than seventy percent of hospital beds being filled with children suffering from serious cases of malaria.  However, Dr Ruth’s message was also one of real hope.  Following the introduction of next generation IRS in the area, malaria cases have fallen dramatically.  Moreover, Dr Ruth has shown how the mission hospital approach can be a model for how future IRS and other vector control initiatives can be efficiently and effectively rolled out across local community settings.   (A full copy of Dr Ruth’s speech can be found here)

IVCC’s programme for the day was filled with a series of panel discussions and presentations from a range of distinguished guests drawn from all corners of the malaria community, including funders, industry, academia and regulators.  As well as valuable networking time, attendees were also able to view an extensive scientific poster programme as well as see a demonstration of new ‘smart-lite’ IRS spray technology from Goizper.

A series of inspiring and thought-provoking sessions ensured that key challenges were discussed and debated and and where achievements had been made, they were appropriately recognised.  IVCC would like to thank all participants for making our Stakeholder conference a highly engaging and successful event.

Major Grant Awarded to IVCC 14th June 2016

IVCC is pleased to announce that it has received its third and largest grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, with an additional $75million over the next five years. The grant will continue to support IVCC’s work in vector control, especially preserving and expanding gains against malaria by developing innovative vector control products that prevent transmission of malaria from mosquitos to vulnerable populations. In particular, the grant will contribute to development costs of three new insecticides currently in pre-development and other related tools and solutions, the total costs shared with industry and other funders.

Sir Mark Moody Stuart, Chairman of the IVCC Board of Trustees, said, ‘This is a remarkable time for IVCC in its 10th year of discovering and developing new vector control tools. This substantial grant is evidence of the successful journey so far travelled, and we are grateful for the continued support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and all our partners. Vector control has been shown to have played a major role in the rolling back of malaria over the past 15 years and this grant will help to maintain that momentum through the new public health insecticides that are about to go into full development.’

Dr Nick Hamon, IVCC’s CEO said, ‘We are very pleased to have received this award from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, coming as it does at a crucial point in IVCC’s strategy to provide malaria control programmes with the vector control tools they need to continue the battle to eradicate malaria. We have a full pipeline of novel vector control products, and next year several innovative compounds will go into final development. We are also working with new partners, and new funders to ensure these insecticide resistance-breaking products are delivered cost effectively and speedily to the market.’

IVCC is also supported by funding from UKAID, USAID, the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, and UNITAID.

World Mosquito Day Announcement from Sumitomo & IVCC 20th August 2015

Sumitomo Chemical and IVCC have been working for the past 5 years to develop a new active ingredient with a novel mode of action for use in the fight against the mosquitoes that transmit malaria and other debilitating and often fatal diseases.

Extensive laboratory based studies demonstrating the safety and efficacy of this chemistry against insecticide resistant mosquitoes have now been completed. On World Mosquito Day, that commemorates the 1897 discovery by Sir Ronald Ross that female mosquitoes transmit malaria, we are delighted to announce these studies have moved to the next phase.  This includes evaluating the performance of a range of prototype products in both laboratory and semi-field based settings.

Read the full press release in the attached file.

£1B Ross Fund Will Boost the Fight Against Malaria 23rd November 2015

Malaria research and development will be boosted by a new £1billion fund, the Ross Fund, backed by Britain’s aid budget and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) that was announced yesterday (November 22, 2015).

Announcing the fund Chancellor George Osborne said he had been committed to the fight against malaria since 1997. ‘A staggering one billion people are infected with malaria and 500,000 children die from the parasite each year,’ he said. ‘Our commitment means Britain can continue to play its part in the fight against malaria and working with the BMGF will help us in our joint ambition to see an end to this global disease in our lifetimes.’

The UK Department for International Development (DfID) has a long track record of effective overseas aid and has a particular reason to be proud through its support for the development of new anti-malarial insecticides. These are an essential element of the bednets and indoor residual spraying which, according to a recent report from Oxford University, has been responsibly for vector control was responsible for about 80% of the overall decline in infection prevalence across the continent since 2000 (read the full report) and (a summary of the report).

International Development Secretary Justine Greening said there was reason to be proud of Britain’s contribution to the fight against deadly diseases across the world, and especially malaria, which costs African economies about £8billion every year. ‘A healthy prosperous world is in Britain’s interest and the prevention of deadly diseases is a smart investment,’ she said. ‘That is why working with the BMGF through the Ross Fund, the UK will tackle resistance and develop drugs or insecticides to bring an end to this terrible disease.’

No new public health insecticide has been developed in over 30 years, and with all the current insecticides now compromised by insecticide resistance, the work IVCC is doing with the support of BMGF and DfID is essential to the malaria battle. Since IVCC began in 2000 we have made considerable progress, and expect to have several new anti-malarial insecticides in the field by 2020 for use in bednets and indoor residual spraying. Their use will make insecticide resistance much more difficult to develop in the future. It is a very tangible return on investment by both UK international aid and the BMGF that is already producing practical results that will change the world for the better.

IVCC, a UK based charity, is the only organisation in the world developing new public health insecticides. Our public-private partnership has worked well over the past 10 years, with funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the UK, US, and Swiss governments, and from our industry partners.

$65M Boost for New Insecticide Use in Africa 1st February 2016

A new $65 million initiative to boost malaria control was announced today in Geneva. IVCC signed a partnership agreement with Unitaid in a project that will combat resistance to insecticides by improving access to new, low-cost anti-mosquito sprays across Africa.

The Next Generation Indoor Residual Spray project, known as NgenIRS, will support countries in obtaining new and effective insecticides at lower prices to spray walls in homes and fight growing insecticide resistance. Over four years, the project aims to protect as many as 50 million people from malaria in 16 African countries. Despite its effectiveness in combating malaria, indoor spraying of walls has fallen by 40 per cent in the past four years. The drop is due to increased resistance of mosquitoes to older products and higher cost of new alternatives.

IVCC will team up with the US President’s Malaria InitiativeAbt AssociatesPATH and the Global Fund to work with industry and country malaria-control programmes to make alternative insecticides with high efficacy more readily available in countries with a high burden of malaria. The initiative will use a co-payment from Unitaid to bring down the price of these new and more effective products in the short term.

A further aim is to reduce the cost of procuring products in the long term through improved forecasting and increased competition among manufacturers.

Welcoming the project, Dr Nick Hamon, IVCC CEO said, “recent evidence has shown that insecticides are the first line of defence against malaria, responsible for nearly 80 per cent of malaria cases averted since 2000. We are working with our industry partners to bring to market as soon as possible novel insecticides that are in the pipeline.’

Lelio Marmora, Executive Director of Unitaid said that the initiative would bolster the central role of insecticides in controlling malaria. “If the insecticide resistance continues to spread unabated, there could be 120,000 more deaths from malaria a year”, he said. “Unless newer insecticides are used, we run the risk of considerable reversals in the fight against malaria. This is the first of many other initiatives by Unitaid to control the spread of malaria-transmitting mosquitoes.”

Speaking at the launch of the project, Dr Pedro Alonso, Director of the WHO Global Malaria Programme, said that it would help maintain the effectiveness of vector control in the short term and encourage competition as prices decrease and demand grows. “Effective vector control is a cornerstone of our global strategy for malaria,’ he said. “It is responsible for many of the gains seen over the last decade in malaria control and elimination. We welcome this joint initiative to accelerate the development and deployment of new insecticides and vector control tools.”

Find out more at www.ivcc.com/market-access/ngenirs/

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