NC State University
Artemisinin is an excellent case study for observing and understanding the evolution of a folk medicine into a commercialised product. Moreover, it offers profound insight into the licensing, manufacturing, and distribution of medication needed to treat many of the world’s most impoverished people. By exploring the trajectory of this well-known therapeutic, the interplay of key actors for malaria control such as the Chinese state, early entry pharmaceutical companies, and the World Health Organization (WHO) is described. What this analysis reveals is a complex entanglement of philanthropy, market trends, and governance oversights that shed light on some of the darker aspects of Artemisinin Combination Therapy (ACT) commercialisation. Additionally, particular attention is given to the absence of Indigenous communities in decision making around global malaria control efforts. This is a call to scientists in STEM fields to innovate more critically, particularly in academic spaces for the purposes of drug discovery.