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Graphical abstract, Highlights • WIPO Re:Search leverages pharmaceutical assets to advance anthelmintic research. • BIO Ventures for Global Health (BVGH) facilitates collaborations and capacity building. • Novartis scientists trained a Cameroonian researcher on advanced biochemistry skills. • Researchers from Canada and Cameroon partnered to discover onchocerciasis drugs. • Natural products were screened against schistosomes and soil-transmitted helminths., Neglected tropical diseases (NTDs), malaria, and tuberculosis have a devastating effect on an estimated 1.6 billion people worldwide. The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Re:Search consortium accelerates the development of new drugs, vaccines, and diagnostics for these diseases by connecting the assets and resources of pharmaceutical companies, such as compound libraries and expertise, to academic or nonprofit researchers with novel product discovery or development ideas. As the WIPO Re:Search Partnership Hub Administrator, BIO Ventures for Global Health (BVGH) fields requests from researchers, identifies Member organizations able to fulfill these requests, and helps forge mutually beneficial collaborations. Since its inception in October 2011, WIPO Re:Search membership has expanded to more than 90 institutions, including leading pharmaceutical companies, universities, nonprofit research institutions, and product development partnerships from around the world. To date, WIPO Re:Search has facilitated over 70 research agreements between Consortium Members, including 11 collaborations focused on anthelmintic drug discovery.

Schistosomiasis, one of 17 diseases deemed to be neglected by the World Health Organization, has received little attention from the biopharmaceutical industry. Due to this, only a handful of drugs have been developed to treat schistosomiasis, with only one, praziquantel, used in most endemic regions. Growing concern over resistance coupled with praziquantel's incomplete efficacy across all stages of the Schistosoma platyhelminth life cycle highlights the urgent need for new drugs. The WIPO Re:Search consortium is a platform whereupon biopharmaceutical company compounds are being repurposed to efficiently and cost-effectively develop new drugs for neglected diseases such as schistosomiasis. This article summarizes recent clinical-stage efforts to identify new antischistosomals and highlights biopharmaceutical company compounds with potential for repurposing to treat schistosomiasis.

1BIO Ventures for Global Health, Seattle, WA, USA 2WIPO, Geneva, Switzerland *Author for correspondence: Tel.: +1 206 732 2131 E-mail: jdent@bvgh.org Advances in science, medicine and technology have enabled high-income countries to dramatically reduce the burden of infectious diseases and even eliminate some of them from their populations. Developing countries, however, are still struggling with high rates of preventable morbidity and mortality due to infectious diseases. Neglected tropical diseases (NTDs), malaria and tuberculosis have a devastating impact on more than 1.4 billion people living in poverty (Table 1) [1], yet current treatments are often expensive, outdated, ineffective and burdened with serious side effects. More effective drugs, vaccines and simple point-of-care diagnostics are needed. Success in developing these new products requires product development know-how, and access to compound libraries and state-of-the-art reagents, as well as an understanding of regulatory processes. Innovative research and product development in the pharmaceutical sector is extremely expensive. The cost of bringing a new drug to market is often in excess of US$1 billion [101]. Recovering these costs through active IP protection has always been central to the pharmaceutical industry’s business model, making it possible to satisfy and return value to shareholders. Protection of IP is thus actively pursued in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology sectors to ensure a period of exclusivity for products brought to market. IP, including patents and trade secrets, guide a company’s strategic direction and make it possible to establish a competitive advantage. These assets are shared or acquired through strict licensing agreements and often at great financial expense to the licensee commensurate with the perceived commercial potential. Gaining access to the assets of pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies has been quite a challenge for researchers working in noncommercial contexts.