S-A wins award for malaria programme

Sanofi-aventis (S-A) has won the 2010 Global Business Coalition Core Competence Award for the Malaria Access to Medicines programme – a campaign to combat the disease, devised in partnership with the Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative (DNDi).

The awards honour organisations who have shown pioneering skills and strategies in the fight against HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.

Previous winners have included Warner Bros. Entertainment, who developed an action-based video game pilot that delivered targeted HIV prevention messages to East African youths, and the BBC World Service Trust for its mass media HIV/AIDS campaign in India.

The Malaria Access to Medicines Programme has seen S-A and not-for-profit product developers, DNDi, develop and distribute anti-malarial treatment, Coarsucam, or ASAQ (artesunate amodiaquine winthrop) in the poorest areas of sub-sharan Africa.

ASAQ is the first anti-malarial treatment to be aimed at such a patient group, in particular children.

The treatment costs less than $1 for an adult and less than $0.50 for children when distributed to non-profit organisations in the area.

More than 50 million ASAQ treatments have been distributed since 2008 when the treatment was pre-qualified by the World Health Organisation (WHO).

Commenting on the award, Global Business Coalition CEO, John Todstrom said: "The sanofi-aventis ASAQ programme has produced real results in helping to address one of the three greatest threats of our time. We congratulate them on their richly deserved success."