PIPELINE

In 2018, moxidectin was approved for individuals aged 12 and older by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA), offering hope in the fight against elimination of river blindness, a disease that affects more than 200 million people, primarily in Africa.

As part of our social impact mission, we are collaborating with Medicines Development for Global Health (MDGH) to support this organisation’s efforts in enabling access of moxidectin to at risk communities.

Scabies spreads easily in settings where people live in close contact and can have a profound impact on communities. It is caused by a tiny mite that burrows into the skin, resulting in an itchy rash that can cause serious discomfort. Repeated scratching can lead to more serious consequences, including bacterial skin infections with potential to contribute to kidney disease and heart valve damage.

According to Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation’s (IHME) Global Burden of Disease Study, scabies was responsible for 11.4 million new cases in high-income countries in 2021.

Current treatments are cumbersome because they require repeat dosing and commonly involve the messy application of topical medications over the entire body.

Due to its long-acting effect, moxidectin may allow elimination of adult scabies mites and their offspring that hatch several days after the dose is taken. Therefore, moxidectin could be used as a single dose tablet that would simplify the treatment of scabies and significantly improve patients’ health.

Caused by demodex mites, demodex blepharitis affects millions of people worldwide with symptoms such as eyelid inflammation, redness and irritation. Its prevalence increases with age, affecting the vast majority of those older than 60 years. There are approximately 1.5 million patients in the USA alone.

Current treatment options for Demodex blepharitis involve eyelid scrubs, topical medications, or oral antiparasitics. However, these treatments may not fully eradicate the mites or address the entire mite life cycle, leading to persistent or recurring flare-ups of eye inflammation.

With its long-acting effect, moxidectin is expected to remain effective against both adult mites and their offspring, potentially offering a more complete and long-lasting treatment after a single dose.

The organism that causes head lice infestations most commonly occurs in school-aged children and adolescents and transmits from person to person via direct contact with an infested person’s hair.

The actual number of cases of head lice infestation is unknown, but the United States Centres for Disease Control estimates that 6 to 12 million infestations occur each year in the United States among children below 11 years of age.

Current head lice treatments, like permethrin, malathion, and ivermectin, face challenges due to drug resistance and are inconvenient to use, meaning that patients often do not complete their treatment. Moxidectin, already proven effective against lice in animals, is being explored as a potential solution in treating human head lice infestation.

We are developing moxidectin as a single tablet dose of moxidectin for the treatment of headlice in adult and paediatric patients. This new option has the potential to disrupt the existing market, offering a more effective and easier-to-use treatment for head lice.