Drugs Against Protozoan Parasites: Target Selection, Structural Biology and Medicinal Chemistry, Copper Mountain, CO, USA, 9-13 April 2005

The International meeting on Drugs against protozoan parasites is organized regularly every three years. This time the Congress, organized by Margaret A.Phillips, Pradipsinh K.Rathod and William N.Hunter, has been held in Copper Mountain Resort and is part of the Keystone symposia series. It was appropriately structured as a multidisciplinary approach to the problem of Drug discovery and development against neglected diseases. Top-ranking scientist from the different areas of functional genomics, structural biology, medicinal chemistry and clinical development had the opportunity to meet and actively discuss of the most important issues related to the field of Malaria, African trypanosomiasis and Leishmaniasis such as new drug targets identification, lacking of “shuttle funding” from lead discovery identification to clinical phases evaluation, funding opportunities from the pharmaceutical companies and govern involvement. The crucial issue of intellectual property and effective cost of the final treatment was discussed. A discrete portfolio of candidate drug, with respect to the past, is at the moment entering the clinical phase III, but most of the new chemical entities are still at the lead level or phase I and II. Among the recent compounds on the market Cancidas, Chlorproguanildapsone, (Lapdap™), Artesunate(CDA) Pediatri, in Phase I, II and III Artekin ™ (dihydroartemisinin-piperaquine), Coartem™ (MMV). The sessions dedicated to the clinical trials and details on the phase I-III were missed, and many problems to the practical approach to the clinical phase evaluation were raised.