Breakthroughs Blog: Vaccines

Last Wednesday, Emergent BioSolutions announced that it has received a $56 million contract extension with the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response to supply the US government with doses of a combined smallpox/mpox vaccine. The single-dose vaccine was first approved by the US Food and Drug Administration in 2007 for smallpox and, since 2024, has been one of two approved vaccines for smallpox and mpox. The vaccine doses, which will be stored in the Strategic National Stockpile, aim to boost US preparedness for future public health emergencies. A novel breakthrough method that utilizes artificial intelligence and advanced imaging technologies to more accurately and efficiently identify therapeutic antibodies could transform the way researchers develop treatments for infectious diseases, particularly emerging diseases, by significantly accelerating research. The method reduces the time needed to identify antibodies with potential from weeks to under a day and can also accomplish this task more efficiently, requiring far fewer researchers dedicating their time to screening thousands of candidate antibodies. This could allow researchers to move on from antibody discovery to the later stages of drug and vaccine development earlier and, ultimately, bring lifesaving products to patients faster. A recently published study found promising results for a new approach to developing broad-spectrum antivirals to treat existing viral infections and maybe even to prevent infections from emerging viral threats. Broad-spectrum antivirals are treatments that could combat a wide range of viruses by hitting essential targets that are common across many different viruses. While there are broad-spectrum treatments for bacterial infections, there has not been a similar broad-spectrum antiviral treatment approved for human use, in part because the proteins on the surface of a virus vary widely and change rapidly over time. The researchers focused on small molecules called synthetic carbohydrate receptors (SRCs), which earlier studies have suggested could be a potential target for antiviral medicines. They tested 57 different SRCs against six deadly viruses from three different viral families, including the viruses behind COVID-19, MERS, Nipah, and Ebola, finding several promising SRCs that blocked cells in the lab from being affected by all the viruses, some of which also later demonstrated promising safety and efficacy results in mice. 

Last week, French biopharmaceutical company Osivax announced that it received a $19.5 million contract from the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) to further develop its broad-spectrum influenza A candidate vaccine for pandemic and seasonal flu preparedness. The vaccine is designed to target a part of the virus that is highly conserved and less likely to mutate, hopefully offering a broader, more universal immune response, and it has demonstrated promising results in early clinical trials. BARDA’s funding will support ongoing clinical development and large-scale trial and manufacturing preparation, with potential options for future funding to support Phase 2b and scale-up activities. A team of researchers at the University of Nottingham successfully produced antibodies that kill the parasite that causes Chagas disease, an important step toward the development of a much-needed vaccine. Chagas is a serious neglected tropical disease, which causes 56,000 cases and 12,000 deaths every year. The researchers developed antibodies targeting two key proteins in the parasite that were found to be extremely effective at neutralizing the parasite in a crucial developmental phase when it’s capable of infection, which is key for vaccine development.   A University of Maryland research team developed an artificial intelligence (AI) tool that can quickly scan electronic medical records to identify high-risk patients who may be infected with H5N1 avian flu, as this year’s outbreak highlights the need for more robust screening interventions to ensure infections are not going undetected. The researchers used their generative AI large-language model to analyze the records of more than 13,000 adults who had visited the emergency department in Maryland in 2024 for acute respiratory illness and common H5N1 symptoms. With less than half an hour of human input, the model found 76 records that mentioned a lifestyle risk factor for H5N1, 14 of which were confirmed to have a recent exposure to animals that transmit H5N1. The tool highlights the shortcomings of the response to the latest outbreak and offers a potential new tool to help improve surveillance and testing in future outbreaks of H5N1 and other infectious diseases.

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 week, the Combating Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria Biopharmaceutical Accelerator (CARB-X) announced that it is awarding $3 million to Baxiva to support the development of a vaccine that targets the most common serotypes associated with invasive Escherichia coli infections. E. coli is the leading cause of urinary tract infections around the world and a common cause of neonatal sepsis infections, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. The candidate uses new targets that haven’t been used in other vaccines and targets several bacterial strains. The company’s rapid development platform also enables it to quickly design vaccines targeting various types of bacteria.The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness (CEPI) last week announced a global collaborative effort to carry out epidemiological and computational modelling projects to help strengthen scientific understanding of the Rift Valley fever and its impact across Africa, helping guide the planning of future clinical trials assessing much-needed vaccine candidates for the disease. Despite major Rift Valley fever outbreaks seen in Africa and beyond and global recognition of the need to boost R&D efforts, there are large gaps in our knowledge about the burden and spread of the disease. The two projects, led by institutions in Kenya and Tanzania and supported by global partners, will assess the impact of the disease across Africa, as well as forecast its future burden, providing crucial data for vaccine developers to plan large-scale trials when the virus is widely circulating.A new study from the University of Alabama at Birmingham demonstrates that an antibody designed to target the dengue virus could also block the spread of the Zika virus, an important finding that could inform the development of much-needed treatments for Zika. There are no approved treatments for Zika, a dangerous virus that can pose severe risks to pregnant people and their babies. In a novel preclinical in vivo model, the antibody helped stop the virus from spreading, particularly in vulnerable parts of the body, leading to improved survival rates.

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. A research team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used artificial intelligence (AI) to design two new potential antibiotics to target drug-resistant gonorrhea and MRSA, which were successful in laboratory and animal tests. Rising antimicrobial resistance has underscored the urgent need for new antibiotics to treat drug-resistant infections, and scientists have been researching how AI could play a role in streamlining the tricky, time-consuming, and expensive task of searching through thousands of known chemicals to identify ones with potential to become new antibiotics. These researchers also brought the technology into the next step of drug development, using generative AI to actually design antibiotic compounds for further study by feeding the AI model data about the chemical structure of known compounds and whether they slow the growth of different bacterial species. While the antibiotic compounds will still need to undergo years of further study and clinical trials, they could serve, if proven effective, as important new tools against the rise of antimicrobial resistance, and, more broadly, this research could pave the way for AI to revolutionize antibiotic discovery, just as this growing threat heightens the need for new drugs.Newly published results from a study done by PATH and PT Bio Farma show that the novel live attenuated type 1 and 3 oral polio vaccines are similarly safe and effective compared to the monovalent Sabin-strain oral polio vaccines. The novel types 1 and 3 oral polio vaccines were developed in response to the rare but concerning risk of vaccine-derived polio associated with the Sabin-strain oral polio vaccines, and these results support the progression of these vaccine candidates to Phase 2 studies. If they continue to prove effective, new oral polio vaccines could support global efforts to boost immunization while reducing the risk of vaccine-associated polio. The study was conducted at four US centers among 205 adults with varying polio vaccination histories.A research team at Arizona State University has developed a test for multiple infectious diseases that is affordable, quick, and non-invasive, offering a new tool for improving access to rapid diagnosis and connection to treatment in low-resource settings around the world. The NasRED (Nanoparticle-Supported Rapid Electronic Detection) test uses just a single drop of blood, costs mere dollars, delivers results in only 15 minutes, and is simple and portable enough to be used in a wide variety of health care settings, including those without significant laboratory infrastructure or health care workers with specialized laboratory training—without sacrificing accuracy. Its developers say it could be a game-changer in an infectious disease outbreak scenario, as well as for diseases that are difficult and important to detect early, including hepatitis C or HIV. Specifically, the test uses tiny gold nanoparticles that are coated with special molecules designed to detect even extremely small amounts of disease-related proteins.