Sanaria Inc. receives major funding for malaria parasite (PfSPZ) repository

ROCKVILLE, MD, USA – November 27, 2023

Sanaria Inc.’s infectious aseptic, purified, cryopreserved Plasmodium falciparum (Pf) sporozoite (SPZ) product known as Sanaria^® PfSPZ Challenge, produced in compliance with good manufacturing practices, has become an enabling technology for conducting controlled human malaria infections (CHMIs) throughout the world. PfSPZ Challenge is used to safely infect volunteers with malaria parasites under controlled conditions, thereby enabling the testing of the effectiveness of new malaria vaccines and drugs, the assessment of human immune responses to malaria infection, and the effects of genetic background on resistance to malaria.

Malaria is responsible for more than 600,000 deaths per year, mostly in children and pregnant women in Africa, and for uncountable numbers of hospitalizations, days lost to illness, days absent from school and billions of dollars spent on control and treatments.  Sanaria has recently received US$1.5M from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation as the first step towards securing a repository of PfSPZ Challenge material for use by research centers in Africa and throughout the world.

“The capacity to inject individuals with PfSPZ has been game-changing for malaria vaccinology and immunology, especially in Africa” said Dr. Melissa Kapulu, a Principal Investigator at the KEMRI-Wellcome Trust Research Centre in Kilifi, Kenya. “We are now able to routinely conduct CHMIs in Africa without the need to maintain a high security insectary to supply malaria-infected mosquitoes, and this capacity has supported the successful research of 10 Kenyan PhD students.”  

Stephen L. Hoffman, CEO of Sanaria added “We first manufactured PfSPZ Challenge in 2010, and since then we have been proud to support many researchers through 33 clinical trials in which 124 separate CHMIs were performed in over 1,000 subjects. These studies were conducted in 12 different countries, half of them in Africa. We are grateful that this funding from the Gates Foundation is now helping to expand the capacity for such studies for the years to come.”

Professor Meta Roestenberg, who led the first clinical trial of PfSPZ Challenge in 2010 and one of Sanaria’s long-term collaborators for malaria vaccine development said, “High quality research tools are essential for us to effectively conduct research leading to vaccines that prevent malaria infection.  Sanaria manufactures a unique set of clinical grade infectious reagents that have supported major advances in malaria research, and assuring their ongoing availability to the field is critically important.” 

Sanaria manufactures two strains of Pf malaria for CHMI, one from West Africa and one from Brazil, and plans to develop East African and Asian strains in the near future.  Sanaria is now also producing the infectious SPZ of P. vivax (Pv), the world’s second most prevalent malaria species and hopes to make PvSPZ Challenge available soon.

Forward Looking Statement

Except for historical information, this news release contains certain forward-looking statements that involve known and unknown risk and uncertainties, which may cause actual results to differ materially from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the statements made. Such statements include the availability of an effective vaccine, the expectations for conquering malaria, beliefs concerning the suitability of a successful vaccine, and the establishment of a path toward prevention of infection. These forward-looking statements are further qualified by important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements.

For business information please contact Alexander Hoffman at sanaria@sanaria.com or 240 547-0359.