On Jan 27th, Bill & Melinda Gates announced that their foundation would contribute $10 billion in the next decade to fund research on new vaccines and new delivery of existing vaccines. This is aimed largely at developing countries and is targeted towards vaccines for AIDs, TB, pneumonia, etc.
A couple relevant announcments this week? Medical News Today reported that scientists from Nova Bio-Pharma Technologies have made strides toward producing vaccines that do not need refrigeration using their patented HydRIS system in a proof-of-concept study at Oxford. Maintaining vaccines in tropical environments without refrigeration has been identified as a key block to successful vaccine programs in many developing countries.
NovaVax was named to Fast Company's Top 10 Most Innovative Biotech Company's List - and was cited for its creative models and progressive culture. NovaVax's reported positive results on its trivalent seasonal flu vaccine earlier this month that relies on novel virus-like particle (VLP) technology. The VLP formula raised a particularly high immune response to the viral neuraminidase activity - which is somewhat less prone to mutation. Couple that with WHO's recommendation today to include H1N1in next year's seasonal flu preparations - you have a winner.
Posted by Bruce Lehr Feb 18, 2010
This is good article from WSJ detailing failure of Bill & Melinda (& Who, etc) to be able to eradicate polio in Africa - despite good intentions backed by $700 M+. The article calls into question the "single disease" model for eradication that worked with small pox but with pretty much nothing else. It may be time to look at more complex solutions that address a wider swathe of issues in healthcare in Africa or other developing areas.
http://bit.ly/9n9K2k
Posted by: Bruce Lehr | 04/26/2010 at 06:47 PM
Today AltraVax also announced its licensing of the Maxygen MolecularBreeding technology platform that is touted to compress vaccine development timelines See GEN http://www.genengnews.com/news/bnitem.aspx?name=75802268)
Posted by: Bruce Lehr | 02/19/2010 at 02:30 PM