When DNDi started work on sleeping sickness more than twenty years ago, doctors had just one treatment option: an arsenic-based medicine so toxic it killed one in twenty patients.
Today, we celebrate what once seemed impossible: a new oral treatment that can safely cure sleeping sickness in just one dose of three pills. Without hospitalization, without painful injections, and without fear.
Acoziborole is a testament to more than two decades of commitment from our partners and supporters who never stopped believing that the long and devastating history of sleeping sickness could be brought to a close. We are profoundly grateful for your solidarity – and for the trust of every patient whose participation in our research made this life-saving scientific achievement possible.
Stories of hope
Hear from patients, partners, and scientists who helped make a single-dose cure for sleeping sickness reality.
In the media
- A new drug could be the beginning of the end for sleeping sickness, NPR
- ‘Truly spectacular’ drug for sleeping sickness simplifies treatment, raising hopes for eradication, Science
- Single-dose sleeping sickness drug set for approval, Nature
- Tres pastillas para eliminar la enfermedad del sueño en un contexto de recortes globales en ayuda al desarrollo, El País
- New sleeping sickness pill gets nod, paving the way for use in Africa, Associated Press
- New pill has potential to eliminate deadly sleeping sickness, Bloomberg
- Maladie du sommeil : l’autorisation européenne d’un nouveau traitement laisse entrevoir une élimination de la maladie d’ici à 2030, Le Monde
- Innovations fast-tracking the end of sleeping sickness in the DRC, Devex
The science behind acoziborole
- Efficacy and safety of acoziborole in patients with human African trypanosomiasis caused by Trypanosoma brucei gambiense: a multicentre, open-label, single-arm, Phase II/III trial, The Lancet Infectious Diseases
- Mass balance, pharmacokinetics, metabolism, and excretion of radiolabeled acoziborole, a potential novel treatment for human African trypanosomiasis, following single microtracer oral dose to humans, Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy
- Determination of the optimal single dose treatment for acoziborole, a novel drug for the treatment of human African trypanosomiasis: First-in-human study, Clinical Pharmacokinetics
- The STROGHAT study protocol: An intervention study to evaluate safety, effectiveness and feasibility of treating gambiense HAT seropositive subjects with acoziborole, Open Research Europe
- Pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics utilizing unbound target tissue exposure as part of a disposition-based rationale for lead optimization of benzoxaboroles in the treatment of Stage 2 Human African Trypanosomiasis, Parasitology
- SCYX-7158, an orally-active benzoxaborole for the treatment of stage 2 human African trypanosomiasis, PLoS Negl Trop Dis
- Clinical and veterinary trypanocidal benzoxaboroles target CPSF3, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
