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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 novel antibody treatment designed to prevent malaria was able to protect against infection in a majority of participants in a phase 1 trial, according to results published last week. The method utilizes a monoclonal antibody, dubbed L9LS, that is optimized to target a protein used by the malaria parasite to infect hosts. The recent trial tested three different doses of the antibody treatment, administered either intravenously or subcutaneously, among 17 healthy volunteers. All participants were then exposed to malaria-carrying mosquitos, and just two participants developed malaria in the weeks following. The results provide proof of principle for a next-generation monoclonal antibody, researchers say, suggesting it could be an important tool in eradicating malaria when used in combination with effective vaccines and other prevention measures.  The US National Institutes of Health is preparing to launch a clinical trial evaluating methods to stretch doses of Jynneos, the only vaccine approved for use against monkeypox in the United States. Researchers will study two adjusted regimens in comparison to the current method, which involves two full doses given 28 days apart. One test group will receive a single dose of the vaccine, and another group will receive two doses, given 28 days apart, that are each one-fifth of a full dose and administered intradermally—or into the skin, rather than under the skin—which has potential to activate powerful immune responses. The study will test whether the dose-sparing approaches generate antibody levels similar to those of the full, two-dose regimen, as well as compare the tolerability and reactogenicity of the two different routes. Results are expected toward the end of 2022.A clinical trial in South Africa has shown that a new vaccine candidate for tuberculosis (TB) is safe for newborns and has fewer side effects than the existing TB vaccine, Bacillus Calmette Guérin (BCG). The experimental vaccine, VPM1002, was developed by genetically modifying the attenuated BCG vaccine strain so that immune cells better recognize the pathogens, in an effort to increase safety and improve efficacy for immunocompromised children. The phase 2 trial compared VPM1002 with BCG in HIV-exposed and non-HIV-exposed newborns and examined the associated safety and immune response, ultimately finding the vaccine candidate safe in both groups of newborns, with fewer side effects than BCG as well as a similar immune response. Researchers plan to continue to evaluate the vaccine among newborns, including its ability to protect against infection, in a phase 3 trial.

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. The Medicines Patent Pool (MPP) and ViiV Healthcare last week announced a new voluntary licensing agreement that would allow for generic manufacturing and distribution of long-acting cabotegravir in an effort to expand access to the HIV prevention drug. Long-acting cabotegravir—an injectable form of preexposure prophylaxis, or PrEP—can provide two months of protection against HIV infection with a single shot, while most other forms of PrEP require daily pills. The new licensing agreement between the United Nations-backed MPP and ViiV will let select generic manufacturers apply for sublicensing to develop, manufacture, and supply generic forms of the drug in 90 countries—pending regulatory approvals—where the HIV burden and potential use of cabotegravir is the highest.The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) is supporting an initiative to develop a standardized approach to test the performance of vaccines being used or in development against monkeypox. The new funding, announced days after the World Health Organization declared monkeypox a public health emergency of international concern, will go to the UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency and the UK Health Security Agency to pursue tools able to assess the strength and duration of immune responses generated by current vaccines, as well as for tests used to detect monkeypox antibody levels. These tools will subsequently be made available to the global scientific community for free, apart from administration fees, enabling a standardized assessment between countries documenting vaccine performance against monkeypox, according to CEPI.Researchers have identified a specific area of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein as a good target for pan-coronavirus vaccines, making a promising advance in the development of a shot to protect against COVID-19 variants and common colds. A universal coronavirus vaccine would need to induce antibodies that recognize and neutralize a wide range of viruses—a challenge, given the complexities of the coronavirus family, according to scientists. In the new study, scientists investigated whether antibodies targeting the S2 subunit of SARS-CoV-2’s spike protein could also neutralize other coronaviruses, including a strain of the common cold as well as several COVID-19 variants, and found promising results among mice. The researchers plan to continue to study the method as potential pan-coronavirus vaccine target and evaluate how it could be integrated with currently licensed vaccines.