IVCC is pleased to welcome Lois Rossi to its team. Lois was formerly Director of the Registration Division in the Office of Pesticide Programs of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).  She will work with IVCC and its partners to navigate an efficient and effective path through the regulatory process, getting novel life-saving vector control solutions to market as soon as possible.

In a career at the EPA spanning 37 years, Lois Rossi was responsible not only for the registration of all conventional pesticides but also for the re-evaluation of approximately 400 active ingredients. Since 2004, she served on the Codex Committee on Pesticide Residues (CCPR) and was a member of the US delegation to the OECD Working Group on Pesticides and the Registration Steering group. In 2003 she served on the staff of the Plant Health Section within the Directorate General for Health and Consumer Affairs, European Commission.

Lois has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Zoology from the University of New Hampshire and a Master of Science degree in Biostatistics and Epidemiology from Georgetown University.  She is a native of Rhode Island.

Welcoming Lois to IVCC, CEO Nick Hamon said, ‘We are delighted to have Lois join the IVCC team at a time when we are focused on selecting novel anti-malarial chemistries for full development. Her valuable experience and understanding of the importance of a robust, equitable and efficient registration system will be of great help in making innovative new public health tools available to those who need them most in the shortest possible time.’

Lois Rossi said ‘I am delighted to be working with IVCC and its partners, applying my knowledge and experience to providing chemical tools that can save lives and contribute towards making the vision of a world without malaria a reality’.

As well as working with IVCC, Lois will be pursuing a number of other projects that will enable her to put her wide experience in environmental protection to good use.

Lady Lever Art Gallery in Port Sunlight provided an elegant backdrop to the 2014 IVCC Stakeholder Day Dinner.

The Dinner traditionally precedes the annual IVCC Stakeholder Day, when colleagues and partners from across the globe gather together to share the latest information about development in vector control product development.

The IVCC Stakeholder Day is a unique networking opportunity for individuals and organisations involved in vector control product development, and the dinner provides the ideal environment for the networking to begin.

Presentations

During the Dinner two presentation were made as an acknowledgement of the service given over the past few years to IVCC and vector control product development.

Dr Janice Culpepper was commended for her help to IVCC over many years as the IVCC programme officer for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Presenting the award, IVCC CEO Nick Hamon said she was the perfect programme officer, always available to give advice when the going is tough. ‘Janice lead us through our application with the Foundation with absolute clarity. She was always the first to ask the tough questions that the rest of the Foundation are bound to ask later’, he said. He thanked Dr Culpepper especially for her help in expanding IVCC’s role in closing the gap between control/elimination and eradication.

Professor Mark Rowland was commended for his help to IVCC as Coordinator of PAMVERC, the Pan-African Vector Research Consortium, an alliance of research institutions, laboratories and field sites in East and West Africa. CEO Nick Hamon said Professor Rowland had proved invaluable in overseeing IVCC’s field trials  of vector control tools to overcome insecticide resistance, and in country laboratory work for IVCC. ‘Mark had the necessary vision that to carry out IVCC’s programme we needed quality trials sites in Africa’, he said. ‘We continue to have that discussion today as we move at least one site towards GLP or GLP-like certification’. He thanked Professor Roland for being a ‘strong champion of IVCC, the African Trial Sites, and Vector Control’.

Complete photograph gallery of the Stakeholder Dinner and the Stakeholder Day can be viewed here.

IVCC receives £12 million from the UK Department for International Development (DfID) to develop the next generation of public health vector control tools.

IVCC has been awarded £12 million over the next five years by the UK Department for International Development (DfID) to support the development of new insecticides to combat malaria.
This is part of the UK Government’s commitment to combating diseases that place an enormous burden on the world’s poor. £138 million will go to nine product development partnerships for the development of new tools to treat, control and ultimately eliminate some of the world’s deadliest diseases, including malaria.

International Development Secretary, Justine Greening, said, “The development of new technologies is vital if we are to improve the health of the poorest people through better treatment and prevention, and avoid the unnecessary deaths of children. Working together in product development partnerships, the public and private sectors have a chance to bring together their expertise for the benefit of millions of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people.”

The CEO of IVCC, Dr Nick Hamon commended DfID for its investment in saving lives amongst the poorest people. ‘This support from the UK government is vital to sustaining the enormous gains that have been made over the past 10 years in preventing malaria through effective vector control tools. Insecticide treated bednets and indoor residual spraying have proved to be very effective at reducing deaths and illness from malaria, but increasing resistance to existing insecticides puts these gains at risk.

With this support from DfID and other major partners such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, IVCC will move to the next phase in our development of the first new public health insecticides in 30 years. This novel chemistry will play a major part in bringing to an end this entirely preventable deadly disease which kills hundreds of thousands of children annually, devastates families and keeps countries poor.’

Since it was formed in 2005 IVCC has worked with some of the world’s leading agrochemical companies to identify new active ingredients that will form the basis of totally new insecticides for malaria prevention, and ultimately help to bring about the eradication of the disease. Companies partnering with IVCC have recently introduced two new insecticide formulations that prolong the effective life of current interventions and are proving to be valuable additional tools for malaria prevention.

The World Health Organization Pesticide Evaluation Scheme (WHOPES) has issued a recommendation for a new polymer-enhanced, long-lasting Indoor Residual Spray for malaria vector control. This deltamethrin based spray was jointly developed by Bayer CropScience and IVCC (the Innovative Vector Control Consortium). It represents a viable cost-effective alternative to DDT for malaria control programs. Market introduction across Sub-Saharan Africa and other malaria endemic areas is expected to occur during 2014 once relevant national regulatory approvals are in place.

Since 2007, Bayer CropScience has been working with its partners in IVCC to develop longer lasting indoor residual spray formulations and new active ingredients to manage insect resistance in malaria vector control. The new polymer-enhanced formulation of deltamethrin offers a residual effectiveness of six months. The World Health Organization (WHO) has recognized this unique formulation as having a longer residual lifespan than any other pyrethroid insecticide formulation.

“The success of the international community’s goal of eradicating malaria globally depends ultimately on new ideas and innovation,” said Dr. David Nicholson, Head of Research & Development at Bayer CropScience. “Our long-lasting indoor-residual spray is an effective malaria intervention. As a global innovation and market leader in vector control, we will continue to work closely with IVCC to foster the introduction of new vector control tools for public health.”

“We are delighted to have met this important research milestone in our collaboration with Bayer CropScience”, said Nick Hamon, CEO of IVCC. “This collaborative achievement illustrates the progress which has been made on the original objectives to deliver effective and affordable vector control interventions. I look forward to further successful outcomes from the IVCC partnership with Bayer CropScience.”

There are many countries in Sub-Saharan Africa where the transmission period for malaria can be longer than six months. In these situations, when indoor residual spraying is regarded as an appropriate intervention, a product with longer-lasting efficacy can be very important, reducing the frequency of spraying required and saving considerable costs for malaria control programs.

All insecticide sprays for malaria control are required to be evaluated and recommended by the WHO for effectiveness and safety. Until now the only product formally recognized to have residual effectiveness exceeding six months has been DDT. However, as a Persistent Organic Pollutant (POP), the production and use of DDT is strictly restricted.

Syngenta and IVCC collaboration delivers new long-lasting insecticide formulation, Actellic® 300CS, now recommended by the World Health Organization to fight insecticide resistant mosquitoes.

Syngenta and IVCC are proud to announce that The World Health Organization Pesticide Evaluation Scheme (WHOPES) has granted a formal recommendation for the use of Actellic® 300CS in malaria vector control. The WHO recommendation opens up additional opportunities for more malaria control programs around the world to access this new long lasting insecticide formulation designed for the control of pyrethroid resistant mosquitoes.

Syngenta believes that people deserve to live their lives uninterrupted by mosquitoes and the diseases that they can transmit. Syngenta has a rich pipeline of insecticides and access to advanced delivery technologies and consequently has been providing leading edge solutions on mosquito control for decades.

Mosquitoes have evolved to survive a number of the existing control products and this threatens the effectiveness of disease prevention programs. IVCC is a product development partnership committed to working with industrial partners to accelerate the development and introduction of new tools to meet these challenges. Syngenta and IVCC have had a long standing collaboration to accelerate and enrich the innovation pipeline for mosquito control.

The development of Actellic 300CS was initiated in 2007, not only to control resistance to the pyrethroid class of chemistry, but also deliver longer lasting performance to facilitate greater program efficiency in spraying programs. Since then, the WHO Global Plan for Insecticide Resistance Management recommends the deployment of non pyrethroid products when programs are looking for technology to complement mass distribution of long lasting insecticide treated mosquito nets.

Syngenta used their expertise in microencapsulation technology to create Actellic 300CS, which is designed specifically for residual spraying. Numerous independent trials have demonstrated at least 9 months residual performance on a range of household surfaces, a significant improvement over current alternatives. Trials have also demonstrated control of pyrethroid resistant strains in both Anopheles and Culex species of mosquitoes.

This unique combination of controlling pyrethroid resistance with proprietary long lasting technology provides the opportunity for malaria control program managers have a greater impact on malaria as part of their integrated control program. Long lasting performance allows for reduction of spray program costs through moving to just one application per season whilst also managing pyrethroid resistance. This is essential when long lasting insecticide treated nets are currently dominated by this class of chemistry.

Actellic 300CS is the first commercial product to exit the IVCC pipeline, and this important WHO recognition meets one of Syngenta [MSB1] and IVCC’s commitments to provide access to new technology in disease endemic countries. More than a million people are now estimated to be protected by Actellic 300CS and production has been scaled up to support all key markets.

This development is just one step on the journey to develop new solutions to controlling mosquito-borne disease, and more alternatives are urgently needed, especially in the fight against growing insecticide resistance. Syngenta and IVCC continue to collaborate on the development of the next generation of insecticides, which will provide a robust solution to future insecticide resistance and equip malaria control programs with the tools they need to defeat malaria.

For more information on Actellic 300CS or Syngenta products please contact: vector.control@syngenta.com

Footnote: Actellic is a registered trademark of the the Syngenta Group companies

Syngenta and IVCC collaboration deliver new long-lasting insecticide formulation, Actellic® 300CS, now recommended by the World Health Organization to fight insecticide resistant mosquitoes