Company: OCEA
Filing Date: 2025-04-08
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0001641172-25-003155
Chunk: 3394

Company: Ocean Biomedical, Inc.
Filing Date: 2025-04-08
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1A
Chunk 3394
---
 140 microseconds) an individual red blood cell. Within the red blood cell,
the merozoite undergoes an approximately 48-hour developmental cycle. Each merozoite sequentially develops into a ring stage parasite,
a trophozoite stage parasite, a schizont stage parasite and then the schizont stage parasite segments into approximately 20 daughter
merozoites, which rupture from the red blood cell. Each of these twenty daughter merozoites infect new red blood cells. This blood stage
infection expands exponentially until the red blood cell loss become sufficient to cause disease. In addition, the trophozoite- and schizont-stage
infected red blood cells become very sticky, leading to clogged blood vessels and tissue damage to the infected human. Ultimately, some
of the parasites differentiate into sexual stages, which are referred to as gametocytes, which can be taken up by a mosquito during a
blood meal. Within the mosquito, these gametocytes develop into sporozoites, which can be injected into a new host when the mosquito
takes her next bloodmeal.

34

Figure
14. Lifecycle of Plasmodium falciparum (source: Clinical Microbiology Reviews, Apr. 2011, p. 379)

Limitations
of Current Malaria Control Efforts

There
are currently three approaches to control malaria, including insecticides to kill mosquitoes, bed nets to limit human-mosquito contact,
and anti-malarial drugs used to treat infected individuals. While these interventions have some impact, each has significant limitations.
Insecticides are expensive, difficult to apply, and harmful to the environment. More concerning is the emergence of widespread resistance
of mosquitos to the insecticides which has led to the search for ever more lethal, and ecologically damaging, insecticides. Nevertheless,
application of insecticides remains an important component of many national malaria control programs.

Bed
nets have seen widespread distribution over the past 15 years based on data demonstrating that sleeping under an insecticide-impregnated
bed net results in a low, but still significant, 16% reduction in child mortality. Bed nets suffer from issues of cost, maintenance (they
must be repaired and re-dipped in insecticide), and compliance.

Given
the low efficacy of bed nets and insecticides, the cornerstone of malaria control programs remains the treatment of symptomatic cases
with anti-malarial drugs. Unfortunately, malaria parasites are particularly good at developing resistance to anti-malarial drugs and