www.palumed.fr

Each year, according to World Health Organization estimates, malaria kills between 1 and 3 million people. The situation is all the more worrying since over the past two years parasites are more and more resistant to treatment.  In this difficult context was spawned Palumed SA, a spin-off of the Laboratoire de Chimie de Coordination (LCC) in Toulouse. Palumed is specialized in antimalarial medication as well as antibiotics and specific chelating agents (for neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's).

This company founded in 1999 naturally works in close collaboration with public research but also with private research particularly Sanofi-Aventis. A collaboration that has turned out to be highly profitable because three patents have been filed in 2000, 2003 and 2006.  Moreover, studies in pharmacology and toxicology conducted since 2002 have led to isolating trioxaquine, a new antimalarial molecule.

The R&D heading of the Palumed website provides a wealth of information regarding these three major areas of research.  You can browse through the specificities of each molecule and the pharmaceutical products developed in its laboratories.

Lastly, note that in a recent interview given in the CNRS Journal (Journal du CNRS), Bernard Meunier, Palumed's director, said that he hired four PhDs and ensured that basins of employment for young researchers were located in these companies.