November 12, 2025

expert reaction to press release from Novartis about their phase III trial of their next-generation malaria treatment KLU156 (GanLum)

Scientists comment on a press release from Novartis about their phase III trial of their next-generation malaria treatment KLU156 (GanLum)

Dr Alena Pance, Senior Lecturer in Genetics and Group Leader, University of Hertfordshire, said:

“It is really encouraging that finally new compounds are being proven effective for the treatment of malaria.  The wide-spread resistance to anti-malarials in parasite populations around the world is notorious and very worrying given the significant prevalence of this disease worldwide.  It is fantastic to see the development of a new drug that has similar or slightly higher efficacy as the mainstream treatments.  Critically, because it has a different mechanism of action from artemisinin (the most important treatment in use at the moment) it can overcome any emerging resistance to artemisinin.  Additionally, ganaplacide is also effective against malaria gametocytes.  This is the stage of the parasite in the blood that persists in the mosquito, so by killing these forms of the parasite transmission is interrupted as well.

“It would be important to understand how effective is ganaplacide against all 5 species of Plasmodium parasites that infect humans and importantly, whether there are secondary effects for patients taking the drug.

“It is difficult to judge the quality of the data without the full paper.  The press release only has the design of the trial and the outcome, lacking detail about age range for example.  Given the complexity and world-wide prevalence of the disease, the trial sample while adequate seems a bit small though it was carried out in a wide geographical region in Africa.  This is important because of the high transmission in Africa and it is reassuring to see that efficacy is very good in this context, even considering recrudescence and reinfections within the treatment period.  The trial included patients with uncomplicated malaria, the most common form of the disease, and it will be very interesting to find out whether this formulation of treatment can also be effective against severe and cerebral malaria, which very often lead to the death of the patients.”

* Press release title: ‘Novartis Phase III trial for next-generation malaria treatment KLU156 (GanLum) meets primary endpoint, with potential to combat antimalarial resistance’.

There is no full paper.

Declared interests

Dr Alena Pance: “I declare I have no conflict of interest regarding this work.”