Antimalarial Resistance Theme

The Antimalarial Resistance research theme aims to develop collaborative global partnerships, a standardised individual patient data collection platform, and innovative analytical tools. This will enable the theme to:

• Bring together all antimalarial drug resistance data to inform effective malaria treatment, especially for vulnerable populations (such as children, pregnant women and those with additional conditions such as malnutrition or HIV infection)
• Curate data from the majority of studies (clinical, molecular, pharmacokinetic, ex-vivo) to a standardised format
• Make this pooled, pseudo-anonymised data available to the malaria research community to enable analyses that improve malaria treatment, research methodology, and identify knowledge gaps.

In 2023, the World Health Organisation estimated that there were 263 million cases of malaria across the world, with almost 600,000 deaths. Drug-resistant malaria:

• increases the risk of malaria transmission
• increases the risk of treatment failure
• is likely to increase malaria-related deaths

Novel antimalarials are unlikely to become available before 2027, so efforts to maintain effectiveness of current antimalarial treatments are crucial. Large-scale individual patient data meta-analyses are a cost-effective and clear way of generating the evidence needed to inform both current and future treatments (such as triple Artemisinin Combination Therapies (ACTs), ganaplacide-lumefantrine).

Our specific aims are:

• Provide third parties with managed access to data shared with the WWARN/IDDO repository, for the purpose of pooled data analyses.
  • Our data governance mechanism follows key data protection principles, including the European Union General Data Protection Regulations (EU GDPR)
  • We will harmonise disparate malaria treatment data into the internationally recognised Study Data Tabulation Model (SDTM) standard, as defined by the Clinical Data Interchange Standards Consortium (CDISC). This is the standard required by regulators such as the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Japan’s Pharmaceuticals and Medical Device Agency (PMDA)
• Develop a set of key research questions with significant stakeholders, including the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV), around improving malaria treatment to mitigate the threat of antimalarial drug resistance
• Execute large scale individual patient data (IPD) meta-analyses that address key research questions
• Use living systematic reviews to inform dynamically updated global and regional malaria treatment guidelines. 

The  Antimalarial Resistance Theme falls under the Worldwide Antimalarial Resistance Network (WWARN), and is governed by IDDO data re-use framework. The leadership and strategic direction of WWARN is overseen by a steering committee, co-chaired by IDDO Director Professor Philippe Guerin. The rest of the committee includes a rotating cohort of malaria experts. 

The Antimalarial Resistance Theme is led by Professor Karen Barnes, with Dr Mehul Dhorda as the theme co-lead.  In seeking leadership, preference has been given to researchers from  lower- or middle-income country with equitable gender representation taken into account as well. 

The WWARN Programme and Project Managers support all malaria-related projects, ensuring operational continuity and project management efficiency. 

This research theme is currently funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Medicines for Malaria Venture, and the Global Health EDCTP3 Joint Undertaking.