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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. 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.

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 first vaccine against chlamydia—one of the most common sexually transmitted infections—has proven to be safe and effective in a phase 1 clinical trial. The trial tested two different versions of the vaccine and though both elicited an immune response, one performed better than the other. Further testing will proceed with that version. Due to the complexity of the bacterium, researchers posit that a successful vaccine must provoke a strong immune response both with antibodies to fight bacteria outside of the cells, and immune system protein and cells to help clear the bacteria from infected cells. Approximately 131 million people are infected with chlamydia each year. If left untreated, it can cause chronic pelvic pain and infertility in women. Last Wednesday, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved a new drug, pretomanid, for treatment of highly drug-resistant tuberculosis (TB). Pretomanid, developed by TB Alliance, was approved as part of a three-drug, six-month, all-oral regimen, which also includes bedaquiline and linezolid—collectively known as BPaL. In a clinical trial, 95 out of 107 patients had a successful outcome after six months of treatment with the regimen. The historical treatment success rate is 34 percent. Pretomanid is only the third FDA-approved anti-TB drug in more than 40 years, though TB remains the world’s number one infectious disease killer. In what is being hailed as a landmark announcement, two antibody-based therapies have proven to dramatically improve the survival rate of people newly infected with Ebola in a clinical trial conducted in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC)—raising hope that the yearlong epidemic in the DRC and future outbreaks of the virus can be more easily contained. The two treatments, REGN-EB3, developed by Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, and mAb114, developed by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, were among four therapies tested as part of a clinical trial that began in November. These two treatments will now be offered to all patients, with experts recommending that the other two therapies involved in the clinical trial be stopped. The yearlong Ebola outbreak in the DRC, which was declared a public health emergency by the World Health Organization last month, has infected 2,800 people and killed more than 1,800 people.