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Zika, dengue vaccines moving through pipeline; deliveries vary
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Several vaccines for the Zika and dengue viruses are at various regulatory stages as doctors look for new ways to fight the diseases, according to speakers at the meeting of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.
Gerald Kovacs, PhD, a senior advisor to HHS, described several vaccine candidates for Zika, the flavivirus known to cause severe birth defects, including microcephaly.
The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) recently launched a phase 1 clinical trial of a Zika vaccine. The study is testing the vaccine’s ability to safely trigger an immune response in about 80 healthy volunteers between the ages of 18 and 35 years.
The same factors will be tested in a phase 1 trial of a new messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccine developed by Moderna Therapeutics. After being injected, a piece of mRNA expresses a foreign gene that triggers an immune response.
The mRNA produced effective results in animal models, Kovacs said. BARDA gave Moderna $52.4 million in 2016 for the vaccine’s development.
Another company also received money from BARDA — $43.2 million for the phase 2 development of a Zika purified inactivated virus (ZPIV). The recipient, Sanofi Pasteur, is working with Walter Reed Army Institute of Research to develop the ZPIV.
Kovacs said ZPIV was also very effective in animal models.
He added that BARDA hopes to help companies bring effective vaccines for broad distribution to the market by 2020.
Dengue vaccines, too, are making headway in the regulatory pipeline. Stephen H. Waterman, MD, an adjunct professor at the University of California, San Diego, who also works with the CDC, discussed such candidates at the ACIP meeting.
Companies, including Sanofi Pasteur, Takeda Pharmaceuticals, GlaxoSmithKline and Merck — along with the nonprofit Butantan Institute — are working on vaccines that, like the Zika candidates, take several delivery forms.
Methods include the use of a live-attenuated virus, recombinant subunits of dengue envelope proteins and inactivated dengue virus, among others.
Dengue is a mosquito-borne flavivirus that, according to WHO, causes an estimated 390 million infections per year worldwide. Waterman said about 2 million cases per year progress to severe disease, and about 20,000 are fatal.
Vector control has been unsuccessful over the past 50 years, Waterman said, suggesting the urgent need for an effective vaccine. – by Joe Green
References:
ASPR Blog. BARDA-supported Zika vaccine candidate enters clinical trial. https://www.phe.gov/ASPRBlog/pages/BlogArticlePage.aspx?PostID=223&source=govdelivery&utm_medium=email&utm_source=govdelivery. Accessed February 27, 2017.
Kovacs G. Zika vaccines in development. Presented at: Meeting of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices; Feb. 22-23, 2017; Atlanta.
Waterman SH. Dengue virus vaccines. Presented at: Meeting of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices; Feb. 22-23, 2017; Atlanta.
Disclosure: Kovacs is a senior advisor to HHS, under whose auspices BARDA operates.