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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. An adapted version of an existing treatment regimen to combat highly drug-resistant tuberculosis (TB) maintains efficacy against the disease and reduces side effects, according to results from the ZeNix trial announced last week. The ZeNix study, led by TB Alliance, is a follow-up to the Nix-TB trial, which published results last year showing 89 percent of participants were cured of TB when treated for six months with a combination of bedaquiline, pretomanid, and linezolid—known as the BPaL regimen. ZeNix evaluated the same regimen among 181 people with cases of highly drug-resistant TB in South Africa, Russia, Georgia, and Moldova, but varied the doses and durations of the use of linezolid. Results showed significantly reducing doses and duration of linezolid can have the same levels of efficacy in addition to reducing the side effects significantly.A new partnership will aim to help endemic countries eliminate Plasmodium vivax malaria, a complex and persistent type of malaria that poses a risk to more than one-third of the world’s population. The Partnership For Vivax Elimination (PAVE), led by the Medicines for Malaria Venture and PATH, will conduct feasibility studies to evaluate the best treatment options for P. vivax relapse in diverse populations and settings. The partnership will scale up the single-dose treatment tafenoquine as well as a higher dose of a second drug, primaquine, that cuts treatment time to seven days compared to the 14-day regimen currently in use. PAVE will also generate and consolidate evidence to support malaria-endemic countries in developing and implementing new strategies for P. vivax malaria.The COVAX vaccine-sharing facility is launching a marketplace to address supply chain bottlenecks and accelerate the global production of COVID-19 vaccine doses. The platform will match vaccine manufacturers with suppliers of key inputs to boost production of vaccines for equitable distribution through COVAX. The marketplace will initially focus on six critical areas where there have been shortages, including bioreactor bags, lipids, and vials, but could eventually facilitate supplies for other lifesaving medicines and vaccines hit by global shortages, according to the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, which will facilitate the initiative. COVAX aims to make 2 billion vaccine doses available by the end of the year, but so far has only delivered 118 million vaccines to 135 countries.

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 World Health Organization (WHO) recommended the use of interleukin-6 receptor blockers as a treatment for severe and critical COVID-19, making these only the second set of drugs it has deemed effective in treating the disease. The interleukin-6 blocking drugs, tocilizumab and sarilumab, showed efficacy in reducing deaths in data from more than 10,000 patients involved in 27 clinical trials. Tocilizumab, made by Roche under the brand name Actemra, and sarilumab, made by Regeneron and Sanofi under the brand name Kevzara, are monoclonal antibodies used to suppress overreactions of the immune system in patients with severe COVID-19. In its recommendation, WHO also emphasized a need for equitable access to the treatments, calling on manufacturers to reduce the drugs’ prices and make supplies available to low- and middle-income countries, especially where COVID-19 is surging. A chikungunya vaccine candidate developed by Valneva has received Breakthrough Therapy Designation from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The single-dose, live-attenuated vaccine, VLA1553, also received FDA Fast Track designation in December 2018 and European Medicines Agency PRIME designation in October 2020. Valneva’s phase 3 trial to evaluate immunogenicity and safety of VLA1553 at 28 days following immunization completed recruitment in April, and top-line data is expected in the summer. The Breakthrough Therapy Designation is meant to facilitate and expedite development and review of new drugs for serious or life-threatening conditions where preliminary clinical data demonstrates the drug may have substantial improvement for at least one endpoint over available therapies.Pfizer intends to seek FDA authorization for a third dose of its COVID-19 vaccine in August, the company said Thursday, claiming another shot within 12 months could boost immunity and help combat virus variants. Early data from Pfizer’s booster study showed participants’ antibody levels jumped five- to ten-fold after a third dose, compared to their second dose months earlier. Research has also shown the current vaccine regimen offers strong protection against the delta variant, which is now spreading rapidly around the world and accounts for the majority of new US infections. On the same day as Pfizer’s announcement, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and FDA issued a joint statement saying fully vaccinated Americans don’t need a booster shot yet, and any decision on boosters would happen only when “the science demonstrates that they are needed.”