And the differences. And the similarities of cultures across the world. Aljazeera. To. Help us think of this story as its 1010 years. Wow. So this is the explosive yes its basically a wearable robot. Research and development from new medicines is costly and time consuming and almost always profit driven so where disease affects only the poor that market is neglected meaning no new medicines. To tropical disease its the worlds 2nd largest posits a killer off to malaria killing 40000. 00 people every year but has had no new drugs developed for decades. Im dr dobson when i mean ethiopia to explore how big pharma are being mobilized in an unprecedented Global Initiative to find and fast track a cure for. Colors are also known as visceral leishmaniasis is a parasitic disease transmitted through the bite of infected sounds lights. When they feed on humans parasites infect the body and are internalized by microfiche is immune cells designed to protect us from infections. Here the parasites multiply and destroy the loss infecting other faggots it excels the parasites that move through the lymphatic and vascular systems infiltrating the bone marrow liver and spleen. Symptoms include fever weight loss enlargement of the liver and spleen anemia and the weakened immune system. With the disease affects millions across 98. 00 countries. Just north of the equator here due to the hot climate and i grew cultural lifestyle colors are as endemic. Ethiopia learn has more than 4 and a half 1000 patients every year many of them male migrant farm workers working long hours in the field. With them its a 3 to 4 hour drive to the nearest Treatment Center but for those are unable to pay for transport its a long walk. Fortunately their destination is the center for the treatment of color. For the last 10 years going to University Hospital has been conducting successful Clinical Trials involving the combination of 2 all drugs so damn stupid lou can 8 or s. S. G. And para myself. In 2010 the World Health Organization officially adopted this combination as the new 1st line therapy for callous in east africa its the 1st movement in half a century and dr aramis deros has been leading the way. Our previous regimen was so demonstrable to commit force that a few days with a combination we were able to shorten that regimen to 17 days thats good yes indeed and if you can see was more cement factor sent so you managed to kill 95 percent of patients which is the new combination is that much better than before well in terms of if it is more or less similar. But in terms of. Hospital hospitals base it tends or spittle base to 17 thats a big achievement. Just 2 drug combination therapy is safe and has almost half the hospital stay of the earlier treatment. Thats a crucial reduction for both patients eager to return to work and the Health Sector struggling to accommodate everyone currently all 26 beds here are full. Plate everything is love it must be nice to meet if youre welcomed this is it yes Leishmaniasis Research treatment. After the heavy demands of this years high season the hospital has run out of power m m i said and despite the new w. H. O. Guidelines is forced to return to the full 30 day regimen of painful and toxic s. S. G. Injections. So this is one of old works. Hello he feels very hard how long have you had fever. Because you know better but. Gosh he has been sick for around 6 months now right. There mary you still have pain in your stomach that are running into. Them but who was 1st suspected of having malaria due to the similarity in early symptoms. But after not responding to treatment he was referred to another clinic which finally diagnosed colors are. Now 6 months after he 1st fell ill hes in good hands but if it was left any longer he might not have been so lucky. Patients who are in a very remote place is not able to find out. Subsequently when they really weak and. Then they go. And now that youre here in hospital. Not working how does that affect your earnings as clinician return can change it or start. There are times. In which theyre standing it. Would be mad at us a nation to return. Them but who is likely to normalize within a week still like all colors our patients due to the dangers of s. S. G. Kill require around the clock monitoring and toxicity testing for the entire 31 days of treatment. The new combination therapy is an improvement but until these toxic drugs are replaced entirely by new safer and more if acacias ones its still not good enough. As a neglected tropical disease colors are desperately in need of a new research and development boost. A few 1000 miles away help is at hand through a new Global Initiative. Were here in geneva not far in fighting the un and the World Health Organization but over here were going to meet the n. T. I. The drugs the neglected diseases initiative. The n. D. I. Are the Nonprofit Organization behind the s. S. G. P. M. Development. Founded in 2003 with the help of medicines of front nobel prize money theyve been rallying commercial pharmaceutical companies around the world to share their resources. Already gained access to a limited selection of big pharma drug libraries and now have a portfolio of 15 promising new drugs in various stages of trial for several neglected diseases but now its a particularly important time for them to see Charlie Mowbray head of Drug Discovery is the architect of the all new n t d Drug Discovery booster a project is. And to access and speed up new therapies for color well its a great time to visit is an email im just about to center for the worlds leading pharmaceutical companies ok so after america. Ace high qaeda quickly you can see here theres a chemical structure or some information here of different ways of depicting the structure or its activity against the parasite also it happens to kill t. Crusie that causation i guess so this compound will kill the parasites that cause disease and Reshma Narcisse really we will have screened 100000 compounds maybe to find this one they really precious the parasites are really difficult to kill the properties of this is still quite a long way away from what we need for something or long from only become an oral meds from swallow and itll kill the parasite so we would normally have to start making compounds my hand one at a time really slow really expensive but the companies that have been working in Drug Discovery for 50 or a 100 years already have big collections hundreds of thousands or even millions of compounds and theyre going to have some good look a bit like this one this is Drug Discovery. D. N. D. I is essentially on the hunt for a look alike to this compound one that may have even Better Properties for the purposes of a new drug for colors are. But they cant do it alone thats where the booster comes in participating Pharmaceutical Company has effectively opened their entire back catalogue and whats more theyll lead the search themselves if you persuaded these companies and its in their interest to do. What i think is many many motivations but one of the things i like im a scientist i used to work for fanta Pharmaceutical Company the people on the other side of this project and no different from me theyre really excited about working on a disease like this because we can all see the appalling need here most people want to help and i hope some other companies are going to join this project quite soon so we really want this to be a Global Consortium the name and shame the ones i havent signed yet. Where were working hard with some other companies where you noticed it. It takes a long time in discussions like this we hope some of the Big Companies will join soon so youre going to click send well im just about to do that so so yeah that we can send it. And that will be off the wall. In the u. K. And japan and at the end of the drugs will be made available at no cost or low cost to the patients that need them so an exciting time. Fingers crossed. For pharmaceutical giants have so far signed the booster contract which means the n. D. I. Now gain unlimited access to millions of compounds one of the companys astra zeneca is in the u. K. The other 3 are in japan shinobi. And days i have received charlies email with the seat. Were looking for the man who received the email from the n. T. I. I believe is in here and so she alone its nice to meet she let me have that so you look at structure of molecules on computer models as well as in real life clinically sure yes you need to show me what you do for us that sort of look out there and i think if this sporting event vessels the 3 dimensional structure is no. Victory for us all these compounds that see the compounds and imagine this is the seed that came from the n. D. I. The n. D. I. Seed is 17 parts carbon 4 parts nitrogen 15 parts hydrogen and one part chlorine connected into this unique shape. This combination and shape closely fits and binds to a vulnerable spot on the leash mania parasites interfering with their mechanics by so far an iron mechanism but the fit could be better just like fitting a key to a lock by intelligent trial and error 1. 0 is a shop for food fight this is simple ok this is not a sin but you dont have to be a chemist to say that this doesnt look like that so i would such a similar compound based on chemical for updates on tuesday and i took jan euro and saw that salt screenings are runny oh yes its generally quicker out yes they are at 94 percent and you can see 2 rings 3 rings triangles and the next one is 85 percent. So for didnt even think 2 seconds. After a successful scan for compounds with a similar chemical makeup today in the eyes see the team conduct a 2nd scan for shape and behavioral similarities. Really fast in this system we can search the compound a which are the same in our property is the shape of. A structure itself not just so actually its an additional layer of screening for similarities so these compounds. Actually exist in your library in this building of course were going to see them. Of course thank you very much as i have in fact found 96 matching compounds that d. N. D. I have requested to see. Him manages the archive store many many. Automated storage in there. This lock 384 miniature like. That so small a troop. Inside of you know how many you hold in their. Storage 1xw1xw a year. Wow and i can see a barcode on the bottom here is that unique. Armed with the codes on that sushi because your short list kim is quick to retrieve the 96 compounds as selected by d. N. D. I this all to me to the storage system houses 10 samples of every drug compound on a database kept at minus 20 degrees celsius i live in here is ok wrong. So i know. One of these 96. 00 could be a new cure or a basis of a new cure for colors are. Really right here can i can we hold what sure this one. Is a very small amount it is very hard to find so we can either kimona say this is a mazing literally this is one of the 96. 00 us. Wow just out of curiosity this is this is a compound this was a drug that was being researched and its here in storage always its being researched for us for example this sample was produced in project to barrel cancer agent really that product itself was halted because they couldnt find the compound has enough property they expected why does the company keep them in storage if it doesnt go anywhere we thought it to have another possibility to cure some things so we store them and now we can now we can see maybe this new fuel for colors are maybe its a new class of drug and it was originally intended to be a cancer drug and i think thats incredible