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New process would make anti-malarial drug less costly - Scientists are reporting development of a new, higher-yield, two-step, less costly process that may ease supply problems and zigzagging prices for the raw material essential for making the mainstay drug for malaria. That disease sickens 300-500 million people annually and kills more than one million. The report on the process, which uses readily available substances and could be easily implemented by drug companies, appears in ACS' journal Organic Process Research & Development.