The Institute for OneWorld Health, the first nonprofit pharmaceutical company in the U.S., today announced it received a grant from the Sapling Foundation (Woodside, Calif.) to further engage the pharmaceutical industry in global health partnerships to benefit developing countries. This is the second such grant from the Foundation in support of fostering collaborations with executive and scientific talent from industry.

“This generous grant from the Sapling Foundation will allow OneWorld Health to continue engaging the expertise of senior pharmaceutical executives who have already stepped forward and to begin a dialogue with those who may not be aware of this opportunity,” stated founder and CEO Victoria Hale, Ph.D. “OneWorld Health has already benefited from the generosity of people involved with the pharmaceutical industry through donations of time, resources, expertise and drug leads. We look forward to more collaborations as a means to fulfill our goal of bringing forth new medicines for people in the developing world.”

Among the world’s poorest people, six in 10 die of infectious diseases. For example, diarrhea kills two million children each year. Malaria still infects at least 500 million people each year. And visceral leishmaniasis, a fatal disease that is transmitted by sand flies, infects an estimated 1.5 million people worldwide.

The Institute for OneWorld Health, the first U.S. nonprofit pharmaceutical company, develops new, affordable medicines for infectious diseases that disproportionately affect people in the developing world, including visceral leishmaniasis, malaria, diarrhea and Chagas disease. OneWorld Health applies its entrepreneurial business model with a staff of experienced pharmaceutical scientists that identifies promising leads and drives development from pre-clinical studies to clinical trials through regulatory approval. The Institute for OneWorld Health, headquartered in San Francisco, Calif., is a tax-exempt 501(c) (3) U.S. corporation (http://www.oneworldhealth.org/) ). Media resources are available at http://www.oneworldhealth.org/media/index.php/ .