E-drug: Suppliers/Manufacturers of artemisinin antimalarials
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My company, Management Sciences for Health (MSH), is a non-profit
health consulting organisation based in the USA. At present I am
involved in the preparations for a collaborative project between the
Tanzanian MOH, CDC in Atlanta, WHO and USAID to do clinical trials
with a Combination Therapy (CT) for malaria. The combination is of an
artesiminin based drug with, probably, Sulphadoxine - Pyrimethamine
(SP/Fansidar). The CT has been found to be highly efficacious in S.E.
Asia and the Tanzanian project (together with a related project in
South Africa, Swaziland and Mozambique) is to determine if the same
strategy could work in Africa.
Part of MSH's role in this is to advise on some of the drug
management issues related to the project in Tanzania. As part of this
role I am interested in finding out potential sources of artesunate
drugs, contact details for those sources and an initial indication of the
range of prices. Can anyone help? Are there any generic artesunate
products? Do you know which companies are
manufacturing/distributing artsunates? Can you provide contact
details.
The only information I have is of a drug branded as Arsumax made by
Sanofi Winthrop in China. I have no price information or contact
details for this company or any other.
One final question regarding packaging. In order to assist with the trial
the idea has been raised about putting the CT drugs into a blister pack
i.e. artesunate and SP in the same pack in the correct dosage form.
Are you aware of any companies in the East Africa region who can do
this sort of packaging reliably?
Thank you for having a look at this for me and I shall look forward to
hearing from you.
Best wishes
Malcolm Clark
Senior Program Associate
MSH
mclark@msh.org
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