Celebrate the 35th anniversary of the Mectizan donation all year with our series of new videos. Sixth: The Expansion – Lymphatic filariasis is added to the Mectizan mission.
MDP started with Merck’s donation of Mectizan to control river blindness. A few years later, research led to the consideration of Mectizan for another debilitating disease often overlapping in endemic countries: lymphatic filariasis (LF). In 1995, the Mectizan Expert Committee learned that taking GSK’s drug albendazole along with Mectizan is an effective strategy to eliminate LF and recommended implementing it. This was the catalyst for the partnership between Merck & Co., Inc. and GSK in the fight to eliminate LF.