IPHARM aims to build strategic partnerships with academic and industrial organizations in order to promote R&D and technology acquisition as well as human capital development. Among IPharm’s current collaborative partners:

Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative

The Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative (DNDi) was formed in 2003 comprising of five public sector institutions – the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation from Brazil, the Indian Council for Medical Research, the Kenya Medical Research Institute, the Malaysian Ministry of Health of and France’s Pasteur Institute; one humanitarian organization, Médecins sans Frontières (MSF); and one international research organization, the UNDP/World Bank/WHO’s Special Program for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases (TDR), which acts as a permanent observer to the initiative.

The initiative fosters collaboration both amongst developing countries and between developing and developed countries in order to address the lack of efficacious treatments for neglected diseases around the world.

As a member of the network, IPHARM actively collaborates with partner research institutions and hosts the Natural Substances Drug Discovery and Development Meeting, which brings together researchers from around the world in the field of natural products drug development.

Swiss Tropical Institute

IPHARM has established close ties with researchers from the Swiss Tropical Institute (STI) in Basel, Switzerland.  Professor Reto Brun and Dr. Tanja Wenzler in particular have helped us tremendously in our research efforts in anti-trypanosomal parasitic drug screening. In 2007, Zuriati Zahari, an IPHARM researcher working on anti-trypanosomal and anti-leishmanial screening, was fortunate to be able to participate in a month-long training program at Prof. Brun’s laboratory.

Pan Asian Natural Products Drug Discovery Consortium

The Pan Asian Natural Products Drug Discovery Consortium is a collaborative research network established to foster strong ties between the various research organizations within the Asian region in order to further the cause of natural products drug discovery, with an emphasis on neglected diseases.