Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV), the leading antimalarial product development partnership, has joined the Infection Innovation Consortium (iiCON) as a core partner. MMV, founded in 1999 as a non-profit organisation dedicated to discovering, developing, and delivering new and affordable antimalarial medicines, manages the world’s largest portfolio of malaria drug R&D projects and works with hundreds of global partners across industry, academia, and government.

iiCON, led by the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (LSTM), is a global infectious disease R&D programme that unites industry, academic institutions, and clinical bodies to accelerate the development of treatments, diagnostics, and prevention technologies for infectious diseases. Its mission is to save and improve lives through collaborative innovation.

By joining iiCON, MMV will collaborate closely with several of the consortium’s advanced R&D platforms. These include the Natural Product library screening platform led by LSTM, the AMR Hits to Leads platform led by Infex Therapeutics, and LSTM’s robotic and AI-enabled organoid drug discovery platforms. MMV’s own capabilities—such as AI and machine learning tools for drug design and global screening networks for antibiotics, antivirals, antiparasitics, and antifungals—will also be integrated into the partnership.

Future collaborations may extend to long-acting therapeutic development through iiCON’s Long-Acting Therapeutics platform, led by the Centre of Long-Acting Therapeutics (CELT) at the University of Liverpool.

Professor Janet Hemingway welcomed MMV to iiCON, recognising its decades-long contribution to developing equitable, innovative antimalarial treatments and its impact on global health. She noted that the alignment between iiCON’s platforms and MMV’s expertise presents significant opportunities for synergy and breakthrough innovation in infectious disease research.

Dr Cristina Donini, executive vice president and head of research, early development and modelling at MMV, said the partnership reinforces MMV’s commitment to collaboration and global health impact. While malaria remains its primary focus, joining iiCON supports its broader goal of accelerating drug discovery for multiple infectious diseases.

Established in 2020 with a £18.6 million Strength in Places Fund grant from UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), iiCON has since attracted more than £251 million in investment. It has contributed to creating 770 North West jobs, supported 36 new products to market, and enabled over 5 billion units of life-saving products to reach communities worldwide. The consortium is also developing the Liverpool Robotic Infection Research Laboratory, the UK’s first Category Three Robotic Infection facility, to advance next-generation infectious disease research.