The Ivermen was formed during the annual meeting of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene in New Orleans in November 2014, when a group of academics, members of different NGOs and funding agencies met to discuss the latest evidence on the potential use of ivermectin as a malaria vector control tool.

The main goal of the group is to establish a common research agenda to generate evidence base on whether ivermectin-based strategies can add to the emerging arsenal to interrupt malaria transmission.