GSK and Johnson & Johnson Announce Malaria Vaccine Collaboration

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GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals (GSK Bio) and Crucell NV (Johnson & Johnson) have announced a collaboration to develop a vaccine approach aimed at boosting the efficacy of the world’s most clinically advanced malaria vaccine candidate, RTS,S.

The PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative (MVI) today congratulated the companies on the partnership. “We are excited by the potential of this new endeavor for the field of malaria vaccine development overall and very pleased with the way in which the effort announced today aligns with MVI’s own research and development strategy,” said Dr. Ashley Birkett, director of pre- and early-clinical research and development at MVI. “The agreement between GSK Bio and Crucell is an example of the kind of collaboration that will be required to achieve the community’s goal of a highly effective, next-generation vaccine.”

MVI has strong and successful collaborations with each of the parties to this new agreement. MVI has worked in collaboration with GSK Bio since 2001 and is currently supporting the Phase 3 trial of RTS,S. Under an agreement with Crucell, MVI will support the first test in humans of a vaccine approach that includes weakened cold viruses coupled to a protein similar to that used in RTS,S (Ad35.CS and Ad26.CS). The newly announced collaboration will focus on a “prime-boost” approach, using the Crucell cold virus-derived vaccine candidate (Ad35.CS) as a first dose (prime), followed by two doses of the GSK vaccine candidate (RTS,S) to enhance the body’s ability to fight the parasite.

“With a first malaria vaccine on the horizon, we need to be thinking about how to prepare for this major breakthrough in the battle against malaria,” said Dr. Christian Loucq, director of MVI. “At the same time, this new agreement highlights the importance of investing in the development of next-generation vaccines—including those that build on the success to date of RTS,S—so that we can continue to close in on the elimination of this deadly disease.”

“MVI is committed to attaining a world free from malaria,” Dr. Loucq concluded. “We applaud this endeavor between two of our industry partners and hope that it will inspire others to join together in pursuit of ever more effective malaria vaccines.”

Source: PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative (MVI)

Sanaria Wins $3M Grant for Development of Malaria Vaccine

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Sanaria has won a three-year, $3 million phase 2 Small Business Research Innovation grant from the National Institutes of Health to further develop its malaria vaccine.

The money will support research by scientists at the Rockville company and its partner, Columbia University, according to Sanaria information. The new grant continues earlier NIH-supported efforts at Sanaria and Columbia to develop genetically modified strains of the human malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum that do not cause disease, but stimulate protective immunity when administered as a live, whole parasite malaria vaccine.

“There is considerable excitement about whole parasite malaria vaccines, and research towards developing genetically modified strains for such vaccines is at the cutting edge of this field,” said Christian Loucq, director of the Malaria Vaccine Initiative with PATH-Program for Appropriate Technology in Health, in a statement.

The parasites have been weakened by exposure to radiation and confer high-level protection against malaria when introduced by the bite of infected mosquitoes, according to Sanaria. These parasites invade host tissues, but cannot complete differentiation and do not replicate or cause disease.

“Sanaria is uniquely positioned at this time to expand the pipeline of candidate sporozoite vaccines to include vaccines based on precisely gene-altered parasites that are highly potent in inducing protective immunity against malaria and are unable to cause disease,” said Stephen L. Hoffman, Sanaria’s founder and chief scientist, in the statement.