GHIT Fund Request for Proposals: Hit-to-Lead Platform (HTLP) 2024
The Global Health Innovative Technology Fund (GHIT Fund) is a non-profit organization focused on promoting the discovery and development of new health technologies, including drugs, vaccines, and diagnostics for infectious diseases prevalent in developing countries.
GHIT opened a call entitled Hit-to-Lead Platform (HTLP) 2024 which focused on the aspect of the drug discovery and development process that progresses hits, identified through compound library screening, into lead compounds that can then be optimized into drug candidates. This platform will provide a bridge from early drug discovery to our product development platform that begins with the lead-optimization step.
The key requirement of the Hit-to-Lead Platform is to convert drug hits originated from Japanese compound libraries into lead series through a comprehensive assessment of chemical integrity, synthetic accessibility, scalability and novelty, functional behavior, and structure-activity relationships (SAR), as well as bio-physiochemical and absorption, distribution, metabolism and excretion (ADME) properties.
Proposals must meet the criteria below in order to be eligible for consideration:
Cellular potency consistent with potential to deliver lead series (typically Plasmodium spp. IC50 <1µM, T. cruzi intracellular IC50 <10 µM, L. donovani intracellular IC50 <10µM, and Mycobacterium tuberculosis MIC <10µM)
- Compounds originated/derived from Japan
- Novel hit structures confirmed
- Primary results validated on hit compounds (>90% pure)
- Acceptable in vitro concentration-response curves
- Preliminary SAR with existing analogues
- Progressable chemotypes
- >10-fold selectivity for cytotoxicity using a mammalian cell line (e.g. HepG2)
- Adequate selectivity in counter assay(s)
- No blocking intellectual property (IP)
- No major synthesis or formulation issues anticipated
The GHIT Fund requires each HTLP project to have a collaboration with one of the three leading drug development PDPs as a partner: Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV), Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi), and TB Alliance. A partnership with one of the above PDPs needs to have been solidified at the time of ITA and proposal submission.
Read more here.
Intent to Apply deadline August 30, 2024 (10:00 am Tokyo time). Full proposals deadline September 30, 2024.
