The Sabin Vaccine Institute has partnered with the Vaccine Research Center (VRC), National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), to manufacture prototype ChAd3 vectored Ebola Sudan and Marburg vaccines. These vaccines are to be used for further clinical evaluation and outbreak preparedness and to potentially protect military, first responders, health care and laboratory workers, and other at-risk populations.
Sabin will receive $5.3 million to manufacture the vaccines for the VRC.
“We are committed to preventing unnecessary loss of life by bringing vaccines to those that need them most,” said Amy Finan, Sabin’s CEO. “We are pleased to be working with our colleagues at the VRC, who have conducted significant non-clinical studies and early-stage clinical trials with both vaccines.”
Under an existing Research Collaboration Agreement with NIAID VRC, Sabin plans to continue the development of two individual vaccines against Ebola Sudan and Marburg viruses, building on VRC’s work to date.
In September, Sabin announced an initial award of $20.5 million with options for an additional $107 million from the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) to further support the two vaccine development programmes.
The BARDA contract followed an August agreement between Sabin and GSK, under which Sabin exclusively licensed the technology for candidate vaccines against Ebola Zaire, Ebola Sudan, and Marburg viruses and acquired certain patent rights specific to these vaccines.
Life-saving vaccines against these viruses are overdue. From 2014-2016, an outbreak of the closely-related Ebola Zaire virus spread to 10 countries and took the lives of more than 11,000 people. The ongoing Ebola Zaire outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo has already claimed the lives of more than 2,200 people and was declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern by the World Health Organization.
Clinical vaccine material is being manufactured for and funded by VRC under contract, for Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP)-grade Ebola Sudan and Marburg vaccines, through the Medical CBRN Defense Consortium, a consortium established for advanced development efforts to support the Department of Defense’s medical pharmaceutical and diagnostic objectives, at a level of $5.3 million with options up to $8.5 million.
