Scientists Find Potential New Way to Treat Malaria With a Single Dose

A new malaria treatment that could be taken as a single dose has shown promising results in its first human trial, offering an early but genuine option for a disease whose current front-line drugs are losing ground to resistance.

The compound, cabamiquine, was discovered by a team at the University of Dundee in Scotland and later licensed for clinical development by the pharmaceutical company Merck KGaA.

It was tested in combination with an existing antimalarial, pyronaridine, in a Phase 2a clinical trial called CAPTURE-1.

The results, published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases in July 2026, showed the single-dose combination cleared the malaria parasite in more than 90% of patients within 28 days, with no serious side effects reported.

Why a single dose matters

Malaria is currently treated with artemisinin-based combination therapies, or ACTs, which typically require a course of pills taken over three days.

Completing that course is not always straightforward. Patients in remote areas may struggle to access follow-up doses, and interrupted treatment gives the parasite more opportunity to survive and adapt.

Cabamiquine works differently. It targets a protein the parasite needs to build new proteins for itself, called elongation factor 2, a target no approved malaria drug currently uses.

Because the mechanism is new, the parasite has not yet had the chance to develop resistance against it. Pairing it with pyronaridine, a drug already used in malaria treatment, was designed to reduce the chance of resistance emerging and to clear the parasite faster from the bloodstream.

Professor Ian Gilbert, who leads the University of Dundee's drug discovery unit, said the combination's appeal goes beyond effectiveness.

He said the drug can be delivered in a single dose, which matters when treating a disease that occurs commonly in places where consistent healthcare delivery is difficult, according to a University of Dundee statement issued in August 2026.

What the trial actually found

CAPTURE-1 enrolled 38 patients with uncomplicated Plasmodium falciparum malaria, the most common and dangerous of the malaria-causing parasites, at trial sites in Africa.

Patients received a single oral dose of cabamiquine together with pyronaridine, and researchers followed them for 28 days to check whether the parasite returned.

The PCR-corrected response rate, a measure of how many patients were confirmed clear of the parasite through genetic testing rather than just symptom relief, exceeded 90% in both parts of the study.

No patient experienced a serious adverse event or died during the trial, and researchers found no cases of the infection returning or a new infection appearing within the 28-day follow-up window.

One part of the trial was stopped earlier than planned.

After an initial group of patients received a higher dose, researchers found the drug reached higher blood concentrations than predicted, and a safety monitoring committee raised concerns about giving the treatment over two days rather than one.

Combined with the high efficacy already observed, the trial's sponsors decided further dosing cohorts were unnecessary at that stage.

This is a normal part of early-phase drug testing, not a signal that the treatment failed.

This was a small, early-stage study designed mainly to test safety and establish the right dose, not to prove the treatment works better than existing options.

It enrolled adults and adolescents only. Children, who carry the heaviest burden of malaria deaths, and pregnant women were not included in this trial.

Larger studies covering those groups are still needed before cabamiquine could become an approved treatment.

The resistance problem driving the search

The urgency behind this research comes from a resistance problem now confirmed or suspected in at least eight African countries, according to the World Health Organization's 2025 World Malaria Report.

Artemisinin, the backbone of malaria treatment for two decades, is starting to show reduced effectiveness in parts of the continent, echoing the pattern that made older drugs like chloroquine obsolete.

Malaria cases and deaths both rose globally in 2024, reaching an estimated 282 million cases and 610,000 deaths, according to the World Health Organization.

The WHO African Region carried 95% of both figures, and children under five accounted for about 75% of malaria deaths there. Four countries, Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Niger and Tanzania, accounted for more than half of all global malaria deaths between them.

Dr Timothy Wells, chief scientific officer at Medicines for Malaria Venture and coordinator of the research partnership behind the trial, said cabamiquine is a remarkable molecule because it acts against several stages of the parasite.

In combination with pyronaridine, he said, it could become a medicine suitable for all patients, including pregnant women, calling it a real breakthrough, in comments released by the European and Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership on 20 July 2026.

Dr Montserrat Blázquez-Domingo, senior project officer at the European and Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership, which co-funded the trial, said the study shows how research partnerships can accelerate the development of next-generation malaria treatments, and called the combination a promising step towards expanding the pipeline of tools needed to support malaria control and elimination.

What comes next

Researchers plan to continue developing cabamiquine, including further work to refine dosing and, eventually, trials in children and other groups not covered by this first study.

The trial was funded by Merck KGaA, together with the European and Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, under a research partnership led by Medicines for Malaria Venture.

Any future approval would still be years away and would depend on larger trials confirming both safety and effectiveness across broader patient groups.

For now, cabamiquine remains an experimental compound, not an approved treatment, and current WHO-recommended therapies remain the standard of care.