Breakthroughs Blog: Vaccines

Interested in more global health innovation news? Every week GHTC scours media reports worldwide to deliver essential global health R&D news and content to your inbox. Sign-up now to receive our weekly R&D News Roundup email.Scientists from Target Malaria, a research consortium backed by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, have for the first time outside of the lab released genetically sterilized mosquitoes in Burkina Faso to combat malaria. Using a technique known as a gene drive, scientists injected male mosquito embryos with an enzyme that sterilizes them, with the goal of reducing the mosquito population over time. Target Malaria is also developing an enzyme to prevent male mosquitoes from passing on X chromosomes, which results in all male offspring, thereby reducing malaria transmission since female mosquitoes are the ones that primarily bite and transmit disease. Researchers continue to push for new approaches to combat malaria, which killed more than 400,000 people in Africa in 2017. Progress against the disease is stalling, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Biotech company Themis has raised US$44 million to develop its chikungunya vaccine through a phase 3 trial and move the lead candidate from its immuno-oncology research and development (R&D) program into humans. Themis filed an IPO to raise the funds last year but held off due to “adverse market conditions,” leaving the company to consider other options to fund further development. Last month, Merck invested $200 million in Themis for vaccine R&D, indicating Themis had lined up private financing to fund further development. The phase 3 trial is due to start in the coming months, enroll thousands of participants, and deliver data around the middle of next year. Themis is considering taking the vaccine to market itself. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has accepted an application for approval of Merck’s Ebola vaccine, V920, also known as rVSV∆G-ZEBOV-GP. The vaccine is eligible for priority review and Merck will learn of the FDA’s decision by March 14. If the vaccine receives FDA approval, Merck would become the first company to receive clearance to sell a vaccine against the virus in the United States. In addition to its FDA filing, Merck has had an application for approval in Europe accepted for review earlier this year and has also applied for WHO prequalification status. V920 has been used on an investigational basis during the current Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, with only 71 cases among the 93,965 at-risk people who received the vaccine, according to WHO.

Interested in more global health innovation news? Every week GHTC scours media reports worldwide to deliver essential global health R&D news and content to your inbox. Sign-up now to receive our weekly R&D News Roundup email. On Friday, Kenya became the third African country—following Malawi and Ghana— to introduce the world’s only licensed malaria vaccine. Health authorities are administering the vaccine to young children in rural areas where transmission rates are high. The aim is to reach approximately 360,000 children per year across the three countries in which the vaccine is being rolled out. Although the vaccine only protects about one-third of children who are immunized, those who are vaccinated are likely to have less severe cases of malaria. The vaccine—developed by GlaxoSmithKline, PATH, and partners—is the first and only vaccine to significantly reduce malaria in children, according to the World Health Organization. Malaria kills approximately 435,000 people every year, the majority of whom are children under five years of age in Africa. For the first time, researchers have used CRISPR gene-editing technology to try to treat a person infected with HIV. Scientists in China used CRISPR to engineer human stem cells to mimic a rare form of natural immunity against the HIV virus and transplanted them into a man with HIV and blood cancer. Though many of the cells survived in the man’s body for more than a year without causing detectable side effects, the number of cells was not high enough to significantly reduce the amount of HIV in his blood. While this research was a mixed success, scientists say it serves as proof of concept that CRISPR can be used to edit human stem cells that can be implanted safely in a patient. Researchers at the University of Alberta have developed a user-friendly, affordable, one-step test to diagnose dengue—a mosquito-borne disease that infects nearly 400 million people per year and causes flu-like symptoms. Unlike many traditional diagnostic tests for dengue which, in order to produce a precise diagnosis, require expensive equipment, multiple steps, and advanced training to operate, this test only requires a small blood or plasma sample and a portable tester that produces results in about two hours. As this new dengue test requires cold chemicals, the researchers are now exploring the use of vacuum-drying to create a powder that could withstand the heat in tropical climates where dengue is endemic. Additional research is required for field trials.

Interested in more global health innovation news? Every week GHTC scours media reports worldwide to deliver essential global health R&D news and content to your inbox. Sign-up now to receive our weekly R&D News Roundup email.Researchers have developed a low-cost, biodegradable larvicide that can kill the larvae of the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which transmits Zika, dengue, yellow fever, and chikungunya. Using a technique known as microencapsulation, researchers developed capsules, or shells, made of corn starch that slowly release thyme essential oil when in water—where Aedes aegypti mosquitoes lay their eggs—but remain intact in a dry environment. Thyme oil contains a natural compound that kills the larvae. In the study, the shells only released 20 percent of the thyme oil on first contact with water, meaning the microcapsules could remain functional for approximately five rain cycles. Researchers suggested that the public sector could produce and distribute these low-cost microcapsules so that people can pour them where rainwater accumulates. Stemming mosquito development at the larvae stage, when insects are most vulnerable and not yet a potential vector for diseases, is key to stemming mosquito and disease proliferation. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the philanthropy Flu Lab announced Thursday that US$12 million will be awarded to as many as eight scientific teams to conduct foundational research in pursuit of a universal flu vaccine. The maximum grant will be two million dollars and will stretch over two years. The announcement of six of the grants was made last week in Singapore at Options for the Control of Influenza, the flu world’s largest scientific conference. This research will investigate how to design a flu vaccine that could protect against the multitude of influenza strains, which would not need to be updated frequently as flu viruses mutate. Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance (Gavi), called on donors for $7.4 billion to help immunize 300 million children against life-threatening diseases between 2021 and 2025—saving up to eight million lives worldwide. This announcement was made in Yokohama, Japan alongside a three-day international conference on African development. Gavi is backed by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, World Health Organization, donor governments, and others to fund immunization programs in low-income nations. Gavi CEO Seth Berkley reinforced the urgency around this announcement, noting that 1.5 million people die of vaccine-preventable diseases every year.

Interested in more global health innovation news? Every week GHTC scours media reports worldwide to deliver essential global health R&D news and content to your inbox. Sign-up now to receive our weekly R&D News Roundup email. Last Friday, the World Health Organization (WHO) launched the findings of its malaria eradication report, a three-year long analysis of the global fight against the mosquito-borne disease, calling for “transformative tools and knowledge” to achieve eradication. A summary of the report noted that current tools are not sufficient to wipe out the disease and urged scientists and global health funders to invest in research and development (R&D) of new vector control technologies, vaccines, and medicines to prevent and treat the disease. Currently, less than one percent of investment in health R&D goes to developing tools to tackle malaria. The report calls attention to the funds, tools, and political will needed to control the disease considering WHO data which shows that progress against malaria is stalling after a decade of significant decline in malaria cases and deaths. A phase 3 study from GSK’s ViiV Healthcare showed an injection of its drug cabotegravir and Johnson & Johnson’s Edurant (rilpivirine) could work just as well when given every two months as it does as a monthly therapy. An application of this two-drug injectable regimen as a once-monthly injection has already been put under US Food and Drug Administration priority review with a decision expected by December 29. In two earlier phase 3 trials, the long-acting injectable therapy was found to be as effective as both an oral three-drug regimen of two nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors plus a third agent and ViiV’s own triple drug therapy, Triumeq, in reducing viral load. These results demonstrate progress in efforts to reduce the number of medicines a person living with HIV must take as well as the frequency of treatments. British technology and energy company, Sure Chill, has developed a refrigerator to protect medical supplies, such as vaccines, from power outages. Vaccines are often temperature sensitive to both high and low temperatures, which presents a major challenge for health workers in low-resource settings with limited or unreliable electricity supplies. The refrigerator works by harnessing a natural phenomenon. The refrigerator has a cold compartment that is surrounded by water that cools when connected to power, forming a layer of ice above the chamber. When the electricity is shut off, the warm water rises as the ice melts, keeping the water at a consistent temperature for up to four weeks without power. The refrigerator has kept more than 20 million vaccinations cold and has been approved for use by the WHO.