Ranbaxy is also codeveloping an antimalarial drug with the Geneva-based nonprofit Medicines for Malaria Venture.

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"If used widely, this inexpensive, fixed-dose artemisinin-based combination antimalarial could make important contributions to 'rolling back malaria', " they wrote.

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Each has weak antimalarial activity on its own, but Watkins' experiments over several years showed the new combo to be a potent parasite killer.

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Other lupus sufferers might be prescribed an antimalarial drug called hydroxychloroquine.

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On its own, each has only weak antimalarial activity, but Watkins' experiments over several years showed the new combination to be a potent killer of the parasite.

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But Amyris Biotechnologies, which is also based in California, in Emeryville, and which also started by dabbling in drugs (in its case an antimalarial medicine called artemisinin), is slightly more forthcoming.

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But the only firm that achieved any success was Novartis, which in 1998 developed Coartem, an antimalarial drug that combines artemisinin, an extract from the sweet wormwood plant, with a compound called lumefantrine.

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