London: 18 April 2018 -Today, at the London Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, the world’s leading Crop Protection companies announce their commitment to support the research, development and supply of innovative products to save lives and help eradicate malaria by 2040.

BASF, Bayer, Mitsui Chemicals, Sumitomo Chemical Company and Syngenta have been the major driving force behind the development of innovative vector control solutions, such as bednets and indoor spraying.  Since 2000, nearly 4 in every 5 malaria cases successfully averted through intervention have been due to long-lasting insecticide treated bednets (LLINs) and indoor residual spraying (IRS), saving millions of lives.

In coming together under the ‘ZERO by 40’ banner, these companies are, with the support of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Liverpool based IVCC (the Innovative Vector Control Consortium), reaffirming their commitment to use their expert knowledge and chemical resources to supply and develop innovative vector control solutions to help reduce the malaria burden, which today is increasingly being threatened by insecticide resistance.

In 2005 these companies opened up their chemical libraries to IVCC to support the search for new chemistry to help address the danger of insecticide resistance. As a result, a strong pipeline of innovative solutions is beginning to emerge.  Recent successes include:

•   In 2016 Actellic®300CS, a next generation IRS developed by Syngenta, was introduced into the NgenIRS programme, a 4-year $65.1 million UNITAID-funded market shaping initiative, now stretching across 14
African countries.

•   This was joined in 2017 by Sumitomo Chemical’s SumiShield^® 50WG, a brand-new mode of action chemistry for indoor residual spraying, to enable improved resistance management through rotation.

•   Bayer’s next generation IRS product combining two modes of action, Fludora^® Fusion, is currently undergoing final stage trials required for WHO prequalification and is expected to join the fight in preventing disease transmission for millions of people across sub-Saharan Africa.

•   In 2017, BASF received a WHO interim recommendation for Interceptor^® G2, a new generation mosquito net developed using a repurposed insecticide (chlorfenapyr) from agriculture to help combat resistant mosquitoes.

•   Mitsui Chemicals, which has a long history in the field of vector control, is developing unique mode of action insecticides across a wide range of product applications such as sprays and bednets.

Nick Hamon, CEO of IVCC said “Our industry collaboration, supported by our funders including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the UK’s Department of International Development (DFID), is starting to bear fruit and is saving lives today. But we still have a long way to go to achieve our ambition of ending the disease burden of malaria by 2040. This new initiative will not only secure the current supply of solutions, but will pave the way for desperately needed new forms of chemistry and new vector control tools to reduce the disease burden of malaria which still affects millions of people.”

Saori Dubourg, Member of the Board of Executive Directors, BASF SE, said “Next Wednesday is World Malaria Day, but for half of our world, every day is a fight against this devastating disease. Malaria causes sickness and death, reduces productivity, fuels poverty and creates hunger, especially in impoverished, rural farming communities. ZERO by 40 will connect the smartest minds in public health and science, and I am truly optimistic that it will be a force for change. We can be the generation to end malaria.”

Dr. Jacqueline M. Applegate, Member of the Crop Science Executive Committee & President of Environmental Science of Bayer AG, said “The magnitude and global reach of the disease requires the engagement of all major stakeholders to work together if we are to achieve our bold and ambitious goal of ending the malaria burden within a generation. The declaration signed today with our industry partners confirms the willingness to mobilize our diverse know-how and resources. At Bayer, we are committed to using science and innovation to improve people’s lives and are very proud to be a signee of this declaration.”

Kazunori Tani, Executive adviser of Mitsui Chemicals Agro, Inc. said “Through our continued dedication to innovation in organic chemistry technology, Mitsui Chemicals has discovered novel insecticides that effectively control mosquitos resistant to existing chemicals. With our new technologies, we are proud to contribute to the eradication of Malaria, one of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set by the United Nations.”

Ray Nishimoto, Representative Director & Senior Managing Executive Officer and President of
Health & Crop Sciences Sector, Sumitomo Chemical added “Sumitomo Chemical was founded with the precept that to succeed in the long run, business activities must benefit society. This core value is the basis of our long-standing commitment to continuously develop innovative vector control technologies that will help end malaria for good. On the occasion of the Malaria Summit London 2018, Sumitomo Chemical is proud to join in the Vector Control Malaria Declaration, alongside other leading crop protection companies, and to confirm that we will continue to innovate and invest to bring new vector control solutions to market until malaria is ultimately eradicated.”

Erik Fyrwald, Syngenta CEO said “The WHO reported that in 2016 445,000 people died from Malaria and around 216 million people were infected so we all have a responsibility to help fight this terrible disease.
We are here today to reinforce our commitment in the fight against Malaria and we will work closely to IVCC, and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the companies of our industry to eradicate it.”

Commenting on the initiative, Trevor Mundel, President of Global Health at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, said “Innovative vector control is essential to the success of malaria control and elimination efforts. It’s proven key to saving millions of lives over the past 15 years. That’s why we’re pleased that the companies that have played such an essential role in delivering innovation are extending their commitments to help end malaria for good. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is pleased to support IVCC and its private-sector partners in their efforts to accelerate the discovery and development of new insecticides for public health.”

The scientific community is divided on whether or not we have a chance to achieve malaria eradication. Some argue that the task is too enormous. That lack of products, lack of access, lack of political drive or lack of funds will stop the downward trend of malaria. Some even predict a darker future with a potential resurgence of the disease.

On the other hand some, like Bill Gates, believe that it can be achieved within 15 years with the right resources allocated to the task.

In the end nobody is absolutely right or wrong. Nevertheless there are a few things that are certain:

• If we don’t try to eradicate malaria it will certainly not happen and people in resource poor countries will carry on dying or being socially impaired by this disease
• Aiming for eradication implies a multidisciplinary approach including medicine, vector control, and specialised programs in malaria endemic areas
• It will not happen if there is not enough political and financial support until the job is done

The IVCC team is on the side of those who believe eradication can be achieved. We also have an acute understanding that it will not be a ‘walk in the park’. All our efforts are directed toward releasing new vector control products and ensuring access to them. This is important, because vector control is already identified as one of the most cost effective solutions to controlling malaria by preventing transmission. The downside is the rapid spread of resistance against most of the insecticides currently in use.

That’s why IVCC is working hard with a wide and diverse group of partners to find new solutions, either by re-purposing insecticides already available in other markets, or by engineering brand new insecticides dedicated to public health.

We are not complacent, but we do have solid reasons to be proud:

• We have passed some key milestones in our product development timeline. The horizon is not the horizon anymore, we can start seeing when and how these new products will be made available.
• There is a fantastic group of innovative people and organizations who have decided to work with us and commit time and development resources to this great cause.
• We are supported by committed funders such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, USAID, UKaid and the Swiss Organization for Development and Cooperation.

So, do I believe we can achieve eradication? I do, but only if all the stakeholders in the battle against malaria work together to make it happen. No-one can do it alone. But together we can turn the vision of eradication into a reality.

Sitting snugly in the shadow of Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania sits the Kilimanjaro Christian Medical University College. Based at the college is PAMVERC, where a team of scientists works collaboratively across a number of organisations, such as London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and IVCC, to test new innovations in vector control, mostly malaria-focussed.

Even though we know how to prevent malaria, it still kills over 600,000 people each year. The vast majority of these are children under the age of five, and pregnant women.  Insecticide treated bed nets and indoor residual spraying of insecticides have and will continue to save thousands of lives every year; however, as with any monotherapy (only one class of chemistry is available for use in bed nets), resistance is starting to seriously take its toll.  We are seeing resistance to pyrethroid insecticides and other classes of chemistry almost everywhere we look for it, and in some locations in Africa complete failure has been observed. This is not a new story but it is an increasingly frightening one. Insecticide resistance is now reaching the tipping point. (Watch the IVCC video here for more information)

The good news, however, is that even when insecticides fail, the physical barrier of a net continues to provide some level of protection from malaria transmission, so continued net use is important.  IVCC’s mission and focus since its inception in 2005 has been to work across multiple stakeholders, especially industry, to catalyse innovation in vector control and bring new classes of insecticides to market.  New products are starting to become available or are in the product development pipeline at a well-advanced stage. Watch this space!

However, our focus is beginning to shift from managing innovation to managing time from discovery to impact.  I recently asked two different highly respected scientists in the field of malaria and neglected tropical disease research what a complete failure of pyrethroids in bed nets would represent in terms of lives lost and the estimates were staggering—somewhere between 70,000 and 150,000 per year.  Any number of preventable deaths is completely unacceptable, but these types of numbers defy belief and really raise the level of urgency and responsibility.  Today, from discovery to impact for a new insecticide takes about 12 years.  We have a number of new chemistries just entering the development phase, which means that, if we take a normal course to market we will not see an impact until 2024/2025.

What if all the different players in the value chain agreed to do something creative and disruptive so that we can make new life-saving public health insecticides available by 2020—just five years?  This is feasible, and could save many thousands of lives.

We know how to accelerate the development of experimental products when lives are at stake—the Ebola crisis has demonstrated this.  So, we in the malaria community need to take full responsibility and apply the same principles and urgency to solving the malaria problem.

Novel drugs and vaccines are in the research pipeline, but vector control is and will continue to be the foundation of malaria management for the foreseeable future. Can we rise to the challenge of maintaining or improving on the performance of long-lasting insecticide treated nets and indoor residual sprays and getting them into the hands of those that desperately need them in five years or less?

As I discovered recently, while visiting Forde Abbey, a 12^th century monastery in Dorset, the word about malaria seems to be getting out.

When asked about what I do for a living, I used to expect to start every response with a short explanation of malaria, mosquitoes, insecticides, bed nets and vector control. But this is happening less frequently these days. The general public often knows the basics about malaria and there is an expectation that the challenge of malaria is being managed and a solution is just around the corner.

Just around the corner may be a little optimistic but it certainly it is in sight.  In 2000, <3% of the population at risk from malaria had access to an insecticide treated net; today that number is about 50%.  In the last fourteen years, there has been an estimated 50% global decline of mortality rates. This is something to celebrate, of course, but a staggering 580,000 people still died of malaria in 2013.

The World Health Organization’s new malaria targets are ambitious—to reduce malaria mortality rates and case incidence by ≥90% by 2030, to eliminate malaria from ≥ 35 countries by 2030, and to bring us ‘as close as possible to global eradication.

To achieve this, novel insecticides, drugs and vaccines are essential. IVCC’s mission is to build a toolbox of vector control solutions that can combat insecticide resistance. When IVCC was formed ten years ago, our biggest hurdle was to build partnerships with the major agrochemical industry companies and work with them to identify novel chemistry for public heath use.

Four and a half million compounds and 27 chemical classes later, that challenge has now been replaced with the need to find significant funding to take three new interventions ‘across the finish line’.

In 2013, $2.7 billion was spent on malaria through international and domestic funds. But an estimated $5.1 billion will be needed annually if we are to ensure that malaria ceases to have a devastating impact on people’s health and livelihoods around the world.

So what funding does IVCC need over the next ten years to complete its mission?

It takes much the same process to get a novel insecticide registered and into the right hands as a new drug; chemistry, efficacy, formulations, toxicology, environmental impact and chemistry, registration fees etc. are all needed to provide safe and effective products.

I am very optimistic about the life-saving potential of the IVCC product pipeline, thanks to the incredible support of funders such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, UKAID, USAID, Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, as well as our industry partners such as Syngenta, Bayer, Sumitomo and BASF.

If our current funders ‘stay the course’ until 2025, we need to find an additional $100m, 70% of this in the next four years. I think we can do this, but it will not be easy.

Today we work closely with committed and motivated funders, but there are other sources of funding that could play a part in eradicating malaria.  What about the private sector?   Companies with long-term growth strategies for sub-Saharan Africa, could make a contribution to saving lives and growing the African economy, and at the same time building their brands and repetitional capital.

Are there any senior industry executives out there with the vision to see the value of being a partner in this incredible and winnable fight to eradicate malaria?

IVCC joined Syngenta Crop Protection AG today in a joint media release announcing that Syngenta are progressing a novel insecticide ‘active ingredient,’ into early development.

The breakthrough is a result of four years of intensive research by Syngenta supported by IVCC and our funding partners, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the UK Agency for International Development (UKAID), the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC)

IVCC CEO Nick Hamon emphasised in the media release that this is a significant breakthrough in the battle against malaria that shouldn’t be underestimated. ‘Together with other solutions in the IVCC pipeline, this new insecticide has the potential to substantially reduce the risk of future insecticide resistance and lay a foundation for the eventual eradication of malaria,’ he said.

The announcement by Syngenta heralds the first of several new active ingredients that IVCC partners will enter into full development this year.

It is a timely announcement for World Malaria Day, which takes place on 25th April this year, with its emphasis on sustaining commitment to building on the successes achieved since the turn of the millenium in reducing malaria. In advance of World Malaria Day United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon said that malaria control was one of his priorities; ‘Malaria control has proven to be one of the smartest investments in health we can make,’ he said. ‘When we target our funds in proven malaria control interventions, we create healthier communities and more robust economies’. Read the Secretary-General’s full comments here

Dr Fatoumata Nafo-Traoré, Executive Director of the Roll Back Malaria Partnership also emphasised the importance of tackling insecticide resistance.’We have come half the distance with half the funds,’ she said.’To beat growing threats like insecticide and drug resistance, we must re-commit ourselves and raise our ambitions’.

Syngenta is one of the world’s leading companies with more than 28,000 employees in over 90 countries dedicated to its purpose: Bringing plant potential to life. For more information about Syngenta please go to www.syngenta.com.