|
 Europe is also expected to announce 200 million euros ($250 million)
of funding to develop new Ebola vaccines, drugs and diagnostic
tests, sources said on Wednesday.
U.S. firm Johnson & Johnson said it aims to produce at least 1
million doses of its two-step vaccine next year and has already
discussed collaboration with Britain's GlaxoSmithKline, which is
working on a rival vaccine.
The economics of an Ebola vaccine are still unclear but drug
companies with an eye on their reputations are under pressure to
respond to the major international health crisis now ravaging one of
the poorest corners of Africa.
J&J's head of research Paul Stoffels said it was important to have
several experimental vaccine candidates in development, since it is
not clear which ones will work, but resources could in future be
focused on one clear winner.
GSK's chief executive Andrew Witty told reporters on Wednesday that
a meeting of experts in Geneva this week would discuss ways to
ensure that all companies, including those with no direct
involvement in the Ebola work, pulled together to help remove supply
bottlenecks.
The European funding is expected to be announced this week under a
scheme jointly paid for by the pharmaceuticals industry and the
European Commission, according to two people with direct knowledge
of the situation.
Much of the money is likely to be used to help finance clinical
trials of three experimental vaccines.
There is currently no proven vaccine against the deadly disease and
drug companies have been wary in the past of pouring resources into
Ebola since previous outbreaks have been small. As a result much of
the research effort to date has been driven not by concerns about
sporadic outbreaks in Africa but by fears in the West that Ebola
might become a bioterror weapon.
FRONTLINE HEALTH WORKERS
Clinical tests on GSK's vaccine and another from NewLink Genetics
are under way, while human tests on J&J's vaccine will start in
January.
The World Health Organization (WHO) hopes that tens of thousands of
people in West Africa, including frontline healthcare workers, can
start receiving Ebola vaccines from January as part of large-scale
clinical trials.
Liberia, worst-hit by the virus, welcomed the announcement but said
any vaccine must be affordable and available in sufficient
quantities.
Minister of Information Lewis Brown said: "It is important to
remember clinical trials are in their early stages. We should not be
complacent. The good news today should spur on further research into
a disease that has been ignored for far too long."
The first doses of GSK's Ebola vaccine are expected to be ready late
this year. "It will give WHO and other agencies a useful tool,"
Witty said, adding that the GSK product was likely to be the first
vaccine to be deployed on a limited basis.
Witty and Stoffels said they had talked several times in recent days
about collaboration, including swapping ideas on production and
vaccine development. "It might even be that we have to combine their
vaccine with ours," Stoffels said.
J&J expects the accelerated work on its Ebola vaccine, which has
been helped by recent advances in technology, would yield 250,000
doses by May.
[to top of second column] |
The U.S. company plans to test its vaccine for safety and immune
response in healthy volunteers in Europe, the United States and
Africa from early January, having committed up to $200 million to
accelerate the program.
BOOST FOR BAVARIAN NORDIC
West Africa's Ebola outbreak began in March and has killed more than
4,500 people, most of them in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea,
according to the WHO. Outbreaks in Senegal and Nigeria have been
declared over by the WHO and there have been a handful of cases in
Spain and the United States.
The J&J vaccine was discovered in collaboration with the U.S.
National Institutes of Health (NIH) and includes technology from
Denmark-based Bavarian Nordic, which will now receive a cash
injection from the American healthcare company.
The total potential deal value for Bavarian Nordic could be more
than $187 million, including up-front payments, milestone payments
based on product progress, a supply contract and the purchase by J&J
of shares in the Danish biotech business.
Bavarian Nordic's share price jumped 23 percent to 185 Danish crowns
after the announcement of J&J's plans.
J&J has simplified and fast-tracked its vaccine program in the light
of the world's worst Ebola outbreak.
It had been working to develop a vaccine against both the Zaire and
Sudan strains of Ebola, as well as a related condition called
Marburg disease. However, it is now also developing a vaccine
targeting only the Zaire strain behind the current epidemic, which
should yield results faster.
PROMISING SIGN
Although the safety and effectiveness of J&J's and other
experimental vaccines has yet to be proven, they have provided good
protection against the Zaire strain of Ebola when tested on macaque
monkeys, which is seen as a promising sign that they are likely to
work in humans.
Like a number of experimental vaccines against various diseases,
J&J's vaccine uses a common cold virus, called an adenovirus, to
carry its payload.
Immunization with the J&J vaccine, which was developed by its
Crucell unit in the Netherlands, consists of two injections: one to
prime the immune system and a second to boost the response. In
contrast, researchers are testing a single shot of GSK's vaccine.
(Additional reporting by Supriya Kurane in Bangalore; Editing by
David Goodman, Greg Mahlich and Giles Elgood)
[© 2014 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2014 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. |
