Immtech: Gates $21.3 million grant to fund sleeping sickness

By Lisa Kerner

Charlotte, N.C., Sept. 19 - Immtech Pharmaceuticals, Inc. said a scientific consortium led by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill will receive $21.3 million from The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to develop drugs for fighting African sleeping sickness (Trypanosomiasis) and Leishmania.

This amount is in addition to the $22.6 million Gates grant to the consortium earlier this year for phase 3 clinical trials using Immtech's oral drug, Pafuramidine maleate (DB289), to treat stage one of African sleeping sickness.

Additional grants from The Gates Foundation of $15.1 million and $2.78 million have also been awarded to the consortium.

"Our work with the Consortium for over eight years has developed many compounds, and our efforts have yielded meaningful results that demonstrate the positive effect a public/private partnership can have on delivering cost-effective drugs to address major health challenges," chairman and chief executive officer Eric L. Sorkin said in a company news release.

Immtech, based in New York, develops drugs to treat infectious diseases.

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