Brazil to supply WHO with Chagas disease treatment
This article was originally published in Scrip
Executive Summary
Lafepe, the publicly owned pharmaceutical laboratory of Pernambuco, Brazil, is to supply the WHOwith a Chagas disease treatment, benznidazole. The WHO recognition is a boost for the company, said Dr Davi Santana, Lafepe's technical director. "Becoming part of the group of suppliers to the WHO is not easy… They have very rigorous requirements, from the way we make medicines to the installations in our industrial complex," he said. The company, the only producer of benznidazole in the world, announced recently that it planned to make the first paediatric presentation available by the end of the year (Scrip Online, July 22nd, 2008). The company is also set to deliver on other big projects. "Developing efavirenz 600, a fixed dose antiretroviral and a fixed dose combination for TB are among our most important projects at the moment," Dr Leduar Guedes, Lafepe's technical superintendent told Scrip.