Emerging agents for the treatment of Chagas disease: what is in the preclinical and clinical development pipeline?

Authors

Nieves Martínez-Peinado, University of Barcelona
Nuria Cortes-Serra, University of Barcelona
Irene Losada-Galvan, University of Barcelona
Julio A. Urbina, Venezuelan Institute for Scientific Research
Ana Rodríguez, New York University School of Medicine
John L. VandeBerg, The University of Texas Rio Grande ValleyFollow
Maria-Jesus Pinazo, University of Barcelona
Joaquim Gascon, University of Barcelona
Julio Alonso-Padilla, University of Barcelona

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

7-2020

Abstract

Introduction

Chagas disease treatment relies on the lengthy administration of benznidazole and/or nifurtimox, which have frequent toxicity associated. The disease, caused by the parasite Trypanosoma cruzi, is mostly diagnosed at its chronic phase when life-threatening symptomatology manifest in approximately 30% of those infected. Considering that both available drugs have variable efficacy by then, and there are over 6 million people infected, there is a pressing need to find safer, more efficacious drugs.

Areas covered

We provide an updated view of the path to achieve the aforementioned goal. From state-of-the-art in vitro and in vivo assays based on genetically engineered parasites that have allowed high throughput screenings of large chemical collections, to the unfulfilled requirement of having treatment-response biomarkers for the clinical evaluation of drugs. In between, we describe the most promising pre-clinical hits and the landscape of clinical trials with new drugs or new regimens of existing ones. Moreover, the use of monkey models to reduce the pre-clinical to clinical attrition rate is discussed.

Expert opinion

In addition to the necessary research on new drugs and much awaited biomarkers of treatment efficacy, a key step will be to generalize access to diagnosis and treatment and maximize efforts to impede transmission.

Comments

Original published version available at https://doi.org/10.1080/13543784.2020.1793955

Recommended Citation

Martinez-Peinado, N., Cortes-Serra, N., Losada-Galvan, I., Alonso-Vega, C., Urbina, J. A., Rodríguez, A., ... & Alonso-Padilla, J. (2020). Emerging agents for the treatment of Chagas disease: what is in the preclinical and clinical development pipeline?. Expert Opinion on Investigational Drugs, 29(9), 947-959. https://doi.org/10.1080/13543784.2020.1793955

Publication Title

Expert Opinion on Investigational Drugs

DOI

10.1080/13543784.2020.1793955

Academic Level

faculty

Mentor/PI Department

Office of Human Genetics