Seattle, 18 February 2023 – During a workshop held prior to the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI), Dr. Charles Flexner, the Principal Investigator of the Long-Acting/Extended Release Antiretroviral Research Resource Program (LEAP) today announced, on behalf of all partners, a new version of the Long-Acting Therapeutics Patents and Licences Database LAPaL.
Launched in 2021 by the Medicines Patent Pool with support from Unitaid, LAPaL is a free online dynamic resource that provides information on technical features, development status and intellectual property status of selected long-acting therapeutics that could have health impact in low- and middle-income countries. LAPaL aims to facilitate collaborations in the long-acting space and advocates for access to long-acting therapeutics with potential public health benefit, by fostering development opportunities for fit-for purpose technologies to be used by all those needing them, everywhere, including in resource-limited settings.
The new version of LAPaL is enabled by a collaboration with the Centre of Excellence for Long-acting Therapeutics (CELT) of the University of Liverpool and LEAP. The platform now includes an integrated LA compounds landscape with an interactive visualisation dashboard to track long-acting therapeutics clinical development and regulatory approval status worldwide. As of now, LAPaL includes 10 long-acting platform technologies with many potential applications including HIV prevention and treatment. Today’s release includes five compounds, and more are expected in the coming weeks, including relevant combination products, multipurpose technologies and monoclonal antibodies. A dedicated team of experts will continue to curate and expand the database content based on reliable public sources of information with potential additional contributions and validation certificates from innovators.
About Unitaid
Unitaid is a global health agency engaged in finding innovative solutions to prevent, diagnose, and treat diseases more quickly, cheaply, and effectively, in low- and middle-income countries. Its work includes funding initiatives to address major diseases such as HIV, malaria, and tuberculosis, as well as HIV co-infections and co-morbidities including advanced HIV disease, cervical cancer, and hepatitis C, and cross-cutting areas, such as fever management. Unitaid is now applying its expertise to address challenges in advancing new therapies and diagnostics for the COVID-19 pandemic, serving as a key member of the Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator, co-leading with Wellcome the Therapeutics Pillar and participating in the Diagnostics Pillar. Unitaid is hosted by the World Health Organization.
About LAPaL partners
LAPaL is hosted and coordinated by the Medicines Patent Pool in collaboration with the Centre of Excellence for Long-acting Therapeutics (CELT) of the University of Liverpool with support from Unitaid and the Long-Acting/Extended Release Antiretroviral Research Resource Program (LEAP).
Media contact:
For more information and media requests:
Maggie Zander
Communications officer
M: +41 (0)79 593 1774
