Antimalarial plant's chlorophyll catalyses drug synthesis
New ‘green’ method makes malaria-fighting artemisinin’s synthesis faster and cheaper with industrial production planned for 2021
A key molecule used to make antimalarial drugs can now be directly prepared from a crude plant extract without purification. The new process is powered by the plant’s chlorophyll and could make antimalarial treatments cheaper and widely accessible.1 The method is being commercialised with plans to start industrial production in 2021. Over 200 million people are infected with malaria every year. The most powerful drugs to treat this disease are based on artemisinin – a compound that can be isolated from the sweet wormwood plant (Artemisia annua).