Takeda To Build Dengue Vaccine Manufacturing Plant in Germany
Headquartered in Japan, Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Ltd. is the largest pharmaceutical company in Asia and is speeding up development of a vaccine for dengue fever—a mosquito-borne flavivirus disease. The Japanese drugmaker has initiated a 20,000 patient based Phase 3 study in Asia and Latin America to test its…
Major Clinical Study on HIV Vaccine Begins in South Africa
In South Africa, seven million people (one in every five) live with the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV)—the virus that causes Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). Research in that country is proceeding on the development of an HIV vaccine that some believe may provide relief for those suffering from this disease.
Gates Foundation Supports Time Released Vaccines Coated With Aluminum Oxide
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has awarded a $1.1 million grant to the University of Colorado at Boulder to develop next-generation vaccines that do not need to be refrigerated. The money will fund research conducted by Robert Garcea, PhD, Theodore Randolph, PhD, and Alan Weimer, PhD, who work in the university’s Jennie Smoly Caruthers Biotechnology Building (JSCBB). A major goal is to develop genetically engineered vaccines that deliver time-released doses in the body. Dr. Garcea, who is with the Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology and the BioFrontiers Institute, has teamed up with Dr. Randolph…
NASA Studying Vaccination and Immune Response During Extended Spaceflight
NASA is conducting research to determine how the human immune system changes during extended crewed spaceflight missions and how to “counterbalance” these changes through vaccination. The study is led by investigator Emmanuel Mignot, MD, PhD, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford University, as part of NASA’s Twins Study. It involves astronauts and identical twin brothers Scott and Mark Kelly—the former of which is currently aboard the orbiting International Space Station (ISS) on a one-year mission, which began on…
Sanofi Nears Launch of World’s First Dengue Vaccine
After 20 years of research and development on a vaccine against the mosquito-borne viral disease known as dengue, pharmaceutical firm Sanofi Pasteur SA of France has now produced a vaccine it believes will be both effective and extremely profitable, according to The Financial Times. In a recent article, the newspaper quoted Sanofi Pasteur’s chief executive, Olivier Charmeil, as saying, “The dengue vaccine will be in the high end of profitability among our vaccines.”