Open Chagas

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The drug discovery research and development community in Latin American is working hard to better understand and treat Chagas disease and other neglected tropical diseases in the region, but there are still clear gaps in the translational sciences. Despite significant effort from R&D partners, few drug discovery projects have yielded new pre-clinical and clinical candidates. A review of publications led by Latin American researchers over the last decade showed that 95% of Chagas drug discovery reports stopped at the hit identification phase and did not generate the data needed to progress compounds in the pipeline. 

Open Chagas is a new open innovation platform led by DNDi, created to accelerate the identification of drug candidates for Chagas disease through knowledge sharing, capacity strengthening, and regional collaboration. The project was launched alongside the 10th anniversary of the Lead Optimization Latin America (LOLA) consortium and builds on a decade of experience in collaborative drug discovery in the region. 

Reinforcing DNDi’s commitment to building sustainable partnerships in low- and middle-income countries, as well as promoting open science and accessible innovation, Open Chagas has two main objectives:

1. To identify new chemical series and starting points for discovery projects,
2. To strengthen scientific and open innovation capacities in Latin America. 

Project stages

Phase 1 of the project was completed in August 2025. We received 21 proposals from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Uruguay — a demonstration of the variety of scientific approaches and the broad scientific excellence in the region. Of these, 13 are led by women, and the projects are evenly distributed across three areas: small molecules, natural products, and drug repurposing or therapeutic combinations (seven proposals in each category). 

Phase 2 will begin in late 2025, bringing even more technical interactions, complementary experiments, and capacity strengthening to advance the selected projects toward the identification of new treatments for Chagas disease. 

Target candidate profile and screening cascade

We are primarily looking to map new chemical matter that have experimental activity against intracellular Trypanosoma cruzi, according to our previously published target candidate profile (TCP) and screening cascade. Our ultimate goal is delivering new drug candidates and treatments aligned with DNDi’s target product profile (TPP).