IVCC receives £12 million from the UK Department for International Development (DfID) to develop the next generation of public health vector control tools.

IVCC has been awarded £12 million over the next five years by the UK Department for International Development (DfID) to support the development of new insecticides to combat malaria.
This is part of the UK Government’s commitment to combating diseases that place an enormous burden on the world’s poor. £138 million will go to nine product development partnerships for the development of new tools to treat, control and ultimately eliminate some of the world’s deadliest diseases, including malaria.

International Development Secretary, Justine Greening, said, “The development of new technologies is vital if we are to improve the health of the poorest people through better treatment and prevention, and avoid the unnecessary deaths of children. Working together in product development partnerships, the public and private sectors have a chance to bring together their expertise for the benefit of millions of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people.”

The CEO of IVCC, Dr Nick Hamon commended DfID for its investment in saving lives amongst the poorest people. ‘This support from the UK government is vital to sustaining the enormous gains that have been made over the past 10 years in preventing malaria through effective vector control tools. Insecticide treated bednets and indoor residual spraying have proved to be very effective at reducing deaths and illness from malaria, but increasing resistance to existing insecticides puts these gains at risk.

With this support from DfID and other major partners such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, IVCC will move to the next phase in our development of the first new public health insecticides in 30 years. This novel chemistry will play a major part in bringing to an end this entirely preventable deadly disease which kills hundreds of thousands of children annually, devastates families and keeps countries poor.’

Since it was formed in 2005 IVCC has worked with some of the world’s leading agrochemical companies to identify new active ingredients that will form the basis of totally new insecticides for malaria prevention, and ultimately help to bring about the eradication of the disease. Companies partnering with IVCC have recently introduced two new insecticide formulations that prolong the effective life of current interventions and are proving to be valuable additional tools for malaria prevention.

The World Health Organization Pesticide Evaluation Scheme (WHOPES) has issued a recommendation for a new polymer-enhanced, long-lasting Indoor Residual Spray for malaria vector control. This deltamethrin based spray was jointly developed by Bayer CropScience and IVCC (the Innovative Vector Control Consortium). It represents a viable cost-effective alternative to DDT for malaria control programs. Market introduction across Sub-Saharan Africa and other malaria endemic areas is expected to occur during 2014 once relevant national regulatory approvals are in place.

Since 2007, Bayer CropScience has been working with its partners in IVCC to develop longer lasting indoor residual spray formulations and new active ingredients to manage insect resistance in malaria vector control. The new polymer-enhanced formulation of deltamethrin offers a residual effectiveness of six months. The World Health Organization (WHO) has recognized this unique formulation as having a longer residual lifespan than any other pyrethroid insecticide formulation.

“The success of the international community’s goal of eradicating malaria globally depends ultimately on new ideas and innovation,” said Dr. David Nicholson, Head of Research & Development at Bayer CropScience. “Our long-lasting indoor-residual spray is an effective malaria intervention. As a global innovation and market leader in vector control, we will continue to work closely with IVCC to foster the introduction of new vector control tools for public health.”

“We are delighted to have met this important research milestone in our collaboration with Bayer CropScience”, said Nick Hamon, CEO of IVCC. “This collaborative achievement illustrates the progress which has been made on the original objectives to deliver effective and affordable vector control interventions. I look forward to further successful outcomes from the IVCC partnership with Bayer CropScience.”

There are many countries in Sub-Saharan Africa where the transmission period for malaria can be longer than six months. In these situations, when indoor residual spraying is regarded as an appropriate intervention, a product with longer-lasting efficacy can be very important, reducing the frequency of spraying required and saving considerable costs for malaria control programs.

All insecticide sprays for malaria control are required to be evaluated and recommended by the WHO for effectiveness and safety. Until now the only product formally recognized to have residual effectiveness exceeding six months has been DDT. However, as a Persistent Organic Pollutant (POP), the production and use of DDT is strictly restricted.

Syngenta and IVCC collaboration delivers new long-lasting insecticide formulation, Actellic® 300CS, now recommended by the World Health Organization to fight insecticide resistant mosquitoes.

Syngenta and IVCC are proud to announce that The World Health Organization Pesticide Evaluation Scheme (WHOPES) has granted a formal recommendation for the use of Actellic® 300CS in malaria vector control. The WHO recommendation opens up additional opportunities for more malaria control programs around the world to access this new long lasting insecticide formulation designed for the control of pyrethroid resistant mosquitoes.

Syngenta believes that people deserve to live their lives uninterrupted by mosquitoes and the diseases that they can transmit. Syngenta has a rich pipeline of insecticides and access to advanced delivery technologies and consequently has been providing leading edge solutions on mosquito control for decades.

Mosquitoes have evolved to survive a number of the existing control products and this threatens the effectiveness of disease prevention programs. IVCC is a product development partnership committed to working with industrial partners to accelerate the development and introduction of new tools to meet these challenges. Syngenta and IVCC have had a long standing collaboration to accelerate and enrich the innovation pipeline for mosquito control.

The development of Actellic 300CS was initiated in 2007, not only to control resistance to the pyrethroid class of chemistry, but also deliver longer lasting performance to facilitate greater program efficiency in spraying programs. Since then, the WHO Global Plan for Insecticide Resistance Management recommends the deployment of non pyrethroid products when programs are looking for technology to complement mass distribution of long lasting insecticide treated mosquito nets.

Syngenta used their expertise in microencapsulation technology to create Actellic 300CS, which is designed specifically for residual spraying. Numerous independent trials have demonstrated at least 9 months residual performance on a range of household surfaces, a significant improvement over current alternatives. Trials have also demonstrated control of pyrethroid resistant strains in both Anopheles and Culex species of mosquitoes.

This unique combination of controlling pyrethroid resistance with proprietary long lasting technology provides the opportunity for malaria control program managers have a greater impact on malaria as part of their integrated control program. Long lasting performance allows for reduction of spray program costs through moving to just one application per season whilst also managing pyrethroid resistance. This is essential when long lasting insecticide treated nets are currently dominated by this class of chemistry.

Actellic 300CS is the first commercial product to exit the IVCC pipeline, and this important WHO recognition meets one of Syngenta [MSB1] and IVCC’s commitments to provide access to new technology in disease endemic countries. More than a million people are now estimated to be protected by Actellic 300CS and production has been scaled up to support all key markets.

This development is just one step on the journey to develop new solutions to controlling mosquito-borne disease, and more alternatives are urgently needed, especially in the fight against growing insecticide resistance. Syngenta and IVCC continue to collaborate on the development of the next generation of insecticides, which will provide a robust solution to future insecticide resistance and equip malaria control programs with the tools they need to defeat malaria.

For more information on Actellic 300CS or Syngenta products please contact: vector.control@syngenta.com

Footnote: Actellic is a registered trademark of the the Syngenta Group companies

Syngenta and IVCC collaboration deliver new long-lasting insecticide formulation, Actellic® 300CS, now recommended by the World Health Organization to fight insecticide resistant mosquitoes

The current control paradigm for malaria is not sustainable in the long term from both a biologic and political perspective, said Dr Alan Magill, addressing the IVCC Stakeholder Day conference in Liverpool.

Dr Magill is a Director of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation charged with overseeing the development and implementation of strategies for the foundation’s ultimate goal of the eradication of malaria. He was addressing an audience of vector control and public health experts from across the world, who had gathered together to consider the latest developments in IVCC’s vector control programme. If malaria resurgence is to be avoided, Dr Magill said, eradication is the only strategy that makes sense moving forward.

He outlined five key principles in the malaria eradication strategy. Beginning with the first, precise definitions, he said, ‘the definition of malaria eradication is actually getting parasites out of people.’ The second and third principles involve complete clinical cure including removal of the ‘vast human reservoir of malaria parasites’ in asymptomatic people.

The fourth principle he outlined concerns the fundamental precepts of evolutionary medicine and correct ecologic thinking. ‘Malaria is a very big complex system.  It’s got the biology, the ecology, the political, and the social pieces,’ he said. It is important to understanding it as a system and then ensure that product development and policies are ‘evolutionarily correct’ going forward.

Dr Magill’s final principle was think globally and impact locally,  ‘there is no one size fits all, no one single solution that’s going to magically lead us to eradication,’ he said.

Talking about the role of vector control product development he said that it was important to accelerate the delivery of new vector control products through the current system and get them out to impact just as soon as possible.

‘Let’s finish the job,’ he said in conclusion. ‘We don’t like to get distracted by discussions about elimination and eradication.  This is all about saving lives.  It’s saving lives now in sick people and it’s saving lives for ever going forward because we’re going to avert all those deaths by elimination.  It’s a pure simple equation.  We know that this is biologically and technically feasible and we think the new tools that will be developed in the next few years will make a lot of the things we’re talking about much more operational and feasible.’

Turning to IVCC and the stakeholders in the room he said that the next decade would be an intense period of experimentation—’using current tools and new ways, and really thinking about that long term goal of eradication’.

‘IVCC is a hub in the eradication eco system, and through that hub we can reach out to all the talent in the room.  I would say that if there’s a problem out there in the vector space world, well this is the group of people to solve it.  You own it; if you don’t like it it’s up to you to change it.’

The Innovative Vector Control Consortium (IVCC) has helped the CREC/LSHTM Collaborative Research Programme in Benin achieve Good Laboratory Practice (GLP) certification, the second vector control field trial site to attain certification in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The CREC/LSHTM Collaborative Research Programme is a research partnership set up in 2003 between the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and the Centre de Recherche Entomologique de Cotonou (CREC) at the Ministry of Health in Benin.

The partnership has extensive experience in the evaluation of vector control products (mainly long-lasting insecticidal nets and Indoor residual spraying) to WHO standards.  It is part of PAMVERC (The Pan-African Malaria Vector Research Consortium) and its research activities are largely funded by USAID and by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) through IVCC and collaborating agrochemical companies.

Nick Hamon, CEO of IVCC said: “Field trials facilities in Africa play an essential role in evaluating novel vector control products being developed by our agrochemical partners. The generation of reliable data through GLP compliant field trials is important, as this is the key to establishing the true performance of the products being tested.”

Since 2000, IVCC, in partnership with the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, has been working to strengthen the quality and reliability of data generated by African vector control field trial sites.  This work has included the development of quality management systems including Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), the auditing of facilities for GLP compliance, and GLP training workshops.

An important element of IVCC’s GLP rollout programme has also been its funding of infrastructure improvements including buildings and equipment at its collaborating trial sites. This research capacity building is establishing a network of facilities in Africa that can generate testing data on vector control products of the highest standard.

Dr. Corine Ngufor, Assistant Professor, Disease Control Department, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and Facility Manager of CREC/LSHTM Facility said: “GLP accreditation is never an easy process for any facility. CREC/LSHTM is now the first facility in the West African region and the second in Africa to achieve GLP accreditation for vector control product evaluation. We look forward to working with agrochemical companies to deliver high quality data on the efficacy of novel vector control products in line with the WHO pre-qualification requirements.  As a team, we have worked hard over the past 2 years and are very proud of this achievement.  We are also grateful for the support provided by IVCC through this process.”

Graham Small, IVCC’s Trials Quality and Project Support Manager added: “The growing network of GLP certified trials sites across Africa will allow manufacturers of vector control products to generate their own efficacy data for inclusion in their product dossiers submitted to the WHO Prequalification Team product evaluation process. This represents a major step forward for vector control product testing, which will be of major importance in delivering the IVCC mission and in achieving malaria elimination in the future.”

In 2016, the first field trial site to achieve GLP certification was the Kilimanjaro Christian Medical University College (KCMUCo) was in Moshi, Tanzania.   Five further IVCC collaborating trials sites are now planning their GLP studies and will be submitting their applications for OECD GLP certification through SANAS in the coming year.