Consortium to develop a pandemic flu vaccine
A consortium of experts in the field of human virus research and vaccine development have joined forces to develop a novel pandemic influenza vaccine as a potential mergency vaccination.
A consortium of experts in the field of human virus research and vaccine development have joined forces to develop a novel pandemic influenza vaccine as a potential mergency vaccination.
The four-year FluVac project has been awarded a Euro 3.5m grant from the European Union to help fund the research and the de-velopment of the new vaccine.
It will be coordinated by Nobilon International from the Netherlands, which is part of the human healthcare business unit of Akzo Nobel known as Organon.
The recent epidemic of a new pathogenic strain of H5N1 influenza in birds in Asia has fuelled further concerns about a potential pandemic influenza outbreak. In the event of an influenza pandemic, large quantities of a highly effective vaccine will be needed on short notice.
A European consortium consisting of No-bilon International Protherics and Retro-screen Virology, both from the UK, the Erasmus Medical Centre from the Nether-lands and Landspitali University Hospital from Iceland, has agreed to collaborate on the development of such a vaccine.
The collaboration takes advantage of com-plementary expertise and technology of these renowned parties. Non-clinical studies with a novel H5N1 vac-cine developed by Nobilon and containing CoVaccine HTTM, a powerful adjuvant from Protherics, have produced encouraging re-sults to date. This has resulted in the suc-cessful application of an EU grant to develop this promising vaccine through proof-of-concept in phase I and II clinical trials. Upon successful achievement of proof-of-concept, the consortium intends to pursue further clinical development.
Dr Luuk Hilgers, scientific coordinator for the project on behalf of Nobilon, said: "In the event of an influenza pandemic, vaccination will play a key role in its control. Therefore, availability of a sufficient number of vaccine doses will be critical. In this project, we will exploit the potency of the adjuvant to poten-tiate immunity and to reduce the antigen dose required per vaccination."
