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news.GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and three leading research institutions have formed a new European consortium to help advance development of an Ebola vaccine candidate, which is being jointly-developed by GSK and the US National Institutes of Health (NIH).
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Backed by funding of €15.1m from the European Commission (EC), the new consortium includes GSK and research partners from University of Oxford, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois in Lausanne and the Bernhard-Nocht Institute.
The funding is part of the European Commission Directorate General for Research and Innovation’s Horizon 2020 program supporting research into treatments and vaccines for Ebola.
The new consortium is also expected to secure an additional €1.4m from the Swiss government.
The funding is already being used to carry out an ongoing Ebola vaccine candidate trial in 120 healthy adult volunteers in Switzerland.
If the safety and immunogenicity data from this and other ongoing Phase I trial are positive, the EC funding will allow the consortium to initiate larger Phase II trials in Africa as early as January 2015.
The new trials will be designed to assess the safety and ability of the GSK/NIH vaccine candidate to develop an immune response against Ebola in adults and children, and they will be conducted at established clinical study centers in West Africa.
Earlier this month, scientists at Oxford University have started first booster Ebola vaccine trials to test its safety and evaluate its potential to further increase the immune responses seen in healthy volunteers.
If these early stage booster trials are successful, it is anticipated that they will also investigate the effect of booster vaccination.
GSK Vaccines chairman Dr Moncef Slaoui said: "We welcome the generous support from the European Commission and appreciate how quickly they have worked to secure the research grant for our work.
"These partnerships are essential to accelerate development of the vaccine candidate in response to the Ebola outbreak we are seeing in West Africa."
GSK is also working with the World Health Organization (WHO), regulators and other stakeholders to prepare for efficacy trials in Ebola affected countries including Sierra Leone and Liberia, should the Phase I trials be successful.
Image: GlaxoSmithKline headquaters in London, UK. Photo: courtesy of Maxwell Hamilton.