HQ Team
August 18, 2026: A malaria drug candidate developed by a University of Dundee lab has cleared an early human trial, raising hopes for a single-dose treatment for the disease instead of the multi-day courses used today.
The compound, cabamiquine, was tested alongside the existing antimalarial pyronaridine in 38 adults and adolescents in Gabon and Uganda, with results published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases.
Nearly all current first-line malaria treatment relies on artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs, the family of drugs that pairs a fast-acting compound with a longer-lasting partner drug). But resistance to artemisinin is spreading in parts of Africa, eroding a treatment approach the world has depended on for two decades.
Cabamiquine works differently: it blocks an enzyme called Plasmodium falciparum elongation factor 2 (PfeEF2, a protein the malaria parasite needs to make new proteins and survive), a target no approved antimalarial currently exploits. Pairing it with pyronaridine, chosen for its long half-life and different mechanism, is designed to make it harder for the parasite to develop resistance to either drug.
One dose, strong early results
In the Phase 2a CAPTURE-1 trial, the single-dose combination was generally well tolerated, with no serious adverse events or deaths among participants. PCR-corrected efficacy — a measure that confirms the parasite has actually been cleared rather than merely suppressed — exceeded 90% in both country cohorts by Day 28.
Malaria remains one of the world’s most persistent infectious disease burdens, with an estimated 282 million cases and 610,000 deaths recorded in 2024, according to the WHO World Malaria Report 2025, a toll that has been rising partly because of growing drug resistance.
Professor Ian Gilbert, Head of the Drug Discovery Unit at Dundee, said the compound’s value lies as much in its delivery as its efficacy: “it can be delivered in a single dose, which matters for diseases common in areas where consistent healthcare delivery is difficult.” Incomplete courses of multi-day antimalarials are a recognised driver of resistance, so a one-time dose that patients are more likely to finish could have benefits well beyond convenience, potentially slowing the same resistance problem the drug was designed to outmanoeuvre.
Cabamiquine was discovered by scientists in Dundee’s Drug Discovery Unit, including Dr Beatriz Baragana, Professor Gilbert and Professor Kevin Read, with funding and scientific support from Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV). The CAPTURE-1 trial was run by pharmaceutical company Merck as part of the PAMAfrica consortium, co-funded through the EDCTP2 programme, the European Union, and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida).
“Cabamaquine is a remarkable molecule because it acts against several stages of the parasite, and in combination with pyronaridine it could be a medicine suitable for all patients, including pregnant women,” said Dr Timothy Wells, MMV’s Chief Scientific Officer and the PAMAfrica consortium coordinator. Dr Montserrat Blázquez-Domingo, a Senior Project Officer at EDCTP, added that the study reflects how EDCTP-supported partnerships can move next-generation malaria treatments forward through collaborative clinical research.
What comes next
MMV intends to take the cabamiquine-pyronaridine combination into larger trials, including studies in children and other vulnerable groups, and to optimise dosing further. Paul Willis, MMV’s Vice President of Drug Discovery and Preclinical Safety, said novel treatment and prevention regimens with simplified dosing are urgently needed to support case management and long-term malaria control and elimination goals. If later-stage trials confirm the Phase 2a results, cabamiquine-pyronaridine would join a still-thin pipeline of non-artemisinin options at a moment when the world’s frontline malaria drugs are under mounting pressure.
