Research Roundup: Gates Research Institute to develop TB vaccine, scientists begin work on vaccine for new coronavirus, and world is reliant on handful of companies to combat AMR

Interested in more global health innovation news? Every week GHTC scours media reports worldwide to deliver essential global health R&D news and content to your inbox. Sign-up now to receive our weekly R&D News Roundup email. A broad study of a promising HIV vaccine has ended in failure after an interim analysis showed it was no more effective than placebo in preventing infection. Vaccinations for the Uhambo study in South Africa were halted following the determination on January 23 that 129 people who received the vaccine developed HIV while 123 people who were given placebo also contracted the infection. The trial began in 2016 following testing of a modified version of a vaccine that had proven to be modestly effective in a trial in Thailand four years earlier, thus warranting further study. The Uhambo study was only the seventh large-scale human trial of a vaccine for HIV, a virus that infected 1.7 million people worldwide in 2018, according to the Joint United Nations Program on HIV and AIDS. Two other large human trials of another HIV vaccine candidate, designed by Janssen Pharmaceuticals, part of the health care giant Johnson & Johnson, are currently underway. Funding to develop new technologies for some of the world’s leading infectious disease killers, such as HIV and AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria, reached a record high of US$4 billion in 2018 with strong increases from the private sector, according to the 2019 G-FINDER report. This marks both the largest real annual funding increase on record and the first time that funding has grown for three consecutive years. However, investments in research and development (R&D) for neglected tropical diseases (NTDs)—a subset of debilitating but lesser-known parasitic, viral, and bacterial infections—have plateaued in the past two years and even declined by $34 million over the last decade, according to the report, which was released on the first World NTD Day. The G-FINDER report provides a comprehensive annual look at investments in neglected disease R&D, including how investments are allocated across diseases and product types, funding trends over time, and potential gaps in funding. People showing no symptoms of the novel coronavirus appear to be able to spread it, according to a report in the New England Journal of Medicine. If this finding is confirmed, it will make it much harder to contain the coronavirus, which has caused an outbreak in China and has led the World Health Organization to declare a global health emergency. Some viruses can only be passed when a person is exhibiting symptoms, while others can be spread a day or two before the onset of symptoms—meaning people who are contagious but are asymptomatic can unknowingly spread the virus, complicating containment efforts. According to the report, a woman from Shanghai flew to Germany where she appeared to have passed on the virus to a German colleague a day or two before being symptomatic herself. As of Thursday, the coronavirus was reported to have infected nearly 9,700 people in China, killing 213. Approximately 100 more infections but no deaths have been reported in 18 other countries.

Interested in more global health innovation news? Every week GHTC scours media reports worldwide to deliver essential global health R&D news and content to your inbox. Sign-up now to receive our weekly R&D News Roundup email.  According to a report by the AMR Industry Alliance, a private sector coalition, there is a “concerning shortfall” in investment in late-stage research and development (R&D) to battle antimicrobial resistance (AMR). Though in 2018 the Alliance’s members invested US$1.6 billion in R&D for antibiotics, vaccines, and disease diagnostics needed to tackle AMR,—a figure which dropped by one-third between 2016 and 2018—the report cited this investment as likely insufficient to deliver the tools needed to address growing AMR. It also cited a lack of access to quality and responsibly manufactured antibiotics as a significant challenge in low- and middle-income countries. The report calls on the public sector to provide greater R&D investment, particularly for later-stage research, and advance policy solutions like incentives to spur greater R&D investment and improve access. According to the United Nations, AMR is estimated to result in 700,000 deaths annually, a figure that is forecast to increase to 10 million by 2050. German researchers have developed the first diagnostic test for a new coronavirus that has emerged in central China. The virus was first detected in the city of Wuhan last year and has since sickened dozens of people with recent cases reported in Japan and Thailand. The diagnostic test developed at the Institute for Virology at Berlin’s Charite hospital will allow labs to reliably diagnose the new coronavirus “in a very short period of time,” according to its developers. The test protocol is being made available by the World Health Organization (WHO), and laboratories will be able to order a molecule from the German team to compare patient samples with a positive control. Until now, doctors have only been able to perform a general virus test and then had to sequence and interpret the genome—a difficult task for smaller labs, for facilities in countries where it’s not easy to transport samples or staff aren’t trained thoroughly, or those handling a large number of patients who need to be tested. Last week, WHO published its list of urgent global health challenges facing the next decade, which included climate change, infectious diseases, anti-vaxxers, and AMR, among other challenges. The list was developed with input from experts around the world and “reflects a deep concern that leaders are not investing enough resources in core health priorities & systems, putting lives & economies in jeopardy," according to a tweet by WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. Last year, WHO published a list of ten global health threats for the year 2019 which also included climate change, AMR, weak primary health care, and vaccine hesitancy. WHO noted that these challenges demand a response from the health sector, governments, communities, and international organizations.