TOKYO –Japan's Global Health Innovative Technology Fund (GHIT Fund), which works with several Japanese ministries, pharmaceutical companies and other nonprofit organizations, such as the United Nations Development Program and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, launched a "Grand Challenge" that will see it invest up to $1 million per applicant "for the early stage development of radically new and improved drugs, vaccines or diagnostics to prevent and treat infectious diseases that are prevalent in developing countries."

The goal of the program is to stimulate development of early stage technologies.

The GHIT Fund was launched in 2013. Its aim is to find new ways to deal with malaria, tuberculosis, Chagas disease, leishmaniasis and other diseases that affect developing countries most. By itself or through partnerships, the fund has already supported more than 30 projects.

The first grantees of the Grand Challenge will be announced in August.

The GHIT Fund will support projects for two years to take them to a mezzanine stage. At that point, another $2 million in further funding could be made available for promising drugs or initiatives.

"Japan ranks number three in the world for the discovery and development of new chemical entities, or better said, first-in-class drugs," said Bumpei Tamamura, director of partner relations at GHIT. "This underlines how Japan is a leader in health care innovation and goes beyond drugs."

This new program aims to tap into Japan's capabilities and advance the discovery and development of new health technologies using its intellectual, technological and financial resources. This includes ongoing preclinical and clinical studies.

"This is important as Japan is second in the world for new research in basic science," Tamamura said.

Despite their "neglected" status, the potential market for new and effective products for these infectious diseases could be significant. About 57 million people die every year and more than one-quarter, about 15 million, are killed by an infectious disease, according to the Institute of Infectious Diseases.

"Due to market failure, only 1 percent of new chemical entities (NCEs) approved in 2000 to 2011 were for neglected diseases," said Tamamura. "Difficulties of treating these diseases are emerging drug resistance, limited, safe, effective and affordable drugs, vaccines and diagnostics. It also includes access for a small fraction of patients with neglected diseases."

PERFECT EXAMPLE: EBOLA

The recent Ebola epidemic in West Africa, which spread to unprecedented levels, underscored the need for new technologies and products. According to Chugai Pharmaceutical Co., a member of GHIT Fund, there is still no truly effective treatment for Ebola.

And this is just the latest and most dramatic example of the need for new treatments.

"Last year in Japan, infections by the dengue virus were identified, and many infected individuals were reported," said Chugai in a press release. "Such a crisis of infections has been increasing globally, and international cooperation in the healthcare field is becoming an urgent issue."

To address this need for international cooperation, the GHIT Fund will coordinate the Grand Challenge with the Gates Foundation and other organizations working on neglected infected diseases.

Observers have praised the new initiative.

"This partnership initiative between government, academia and industry is a significant step forward toward bringing new drug therapies," said R. Reed Maurer, a longtime Japanese pharma industry watcher and president of International Alliances Ltd. "Japan has historically demonstrated it has new ideas but has been weak in terms of developing the ideas into drugs."

Tamamura agreed. "We believe partnerships and collaborations among multiple stakeholders are vital for overcoming the global burden of neglected diseases."

This is not the fund's only initiative in the infectious disease space, which is also investing $637,000 in a joint project between Japanese major Daiichi Sankyo Co. Ltd., of Tokyo, and the Medicines for Malaria Venture. The aim of the project is to make and test compounds that could be developed into more effective anti-malarials.

The GHIT Fund has already identified some potential development targets – compounds that may have the potential to inhibit malaria – from among 50,000 compounds developed by Daiichi Sankyo. The goal is to narrow this pool down to one leading development target in the hopes of developing a drug that may help address drug resistance and prevent relapses among sufferers of two types of Plasmodium vivax and Plasmodium ovale, two types of malaria.

In 2013, there were about 198 million malaria cases worldwide and 584, 000 deaths, mostly among young children in sub-Saharan Africa. On the positive side, malaria deaths dropped 47 percent worldwide between 2000 and 2013, according to the World health Organization.