Breakthroughs Blog: Malaria

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. Pfizer and BioNTech last week reported promising early-phase data on an mRNA combination vaccine against COVID-19 and influenza and announced plans to start a phase 3 trial of the vaccine, following Moderna’s similar announcement for its combination vaccine earlier this month. Moderna’s trial began last week, with Pfizer and BioNTech’s likely to start in the coming months as well. A combination vaccine for COVID-19 and influenza has the potential to greatly reduce the burden of these respiratory viruses on patients, providers, and health care systems, underscoring why these companies and the broader research community have placed a greater focus on combination vaccines coming out of the pandemic.At the annual meeting of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (ASTMH) last week, the World Health Organization reported the results of a major evaluation of a pilot rollout in three African countries of RTS,S, the first approved malaria vaccine, showing positive findings about the lives it has already saved. RTS,S cut deaths among young children by 13 percent over nearly four years and cut cases of severe malaria by 22 percent among kids young enough to have received a three-shot regimen. The RTS,S vaccine is notably not a perfect tool, given the limited durability of its protection and lower efficacy, but health experts say this data makes a strong case for broader rollout of RTS,S and the potential of integrating the second approved malaria vaccine, R21, into multipronged efforts to fight malaria.A research team at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health has shown for the first time that human volunteers can be safely and effectively infected with Zika virus, which could benefit research efforts to gain a greater understanding of the disease and to develop vaccines and treatments to use against it, as none currently exist. This controlled human infection model is useful for research because during the 2015-2016 outbreak, researchers were unable to test experimental products in time before the epidemic subsided, and since, there have not been any large outbreaks. The new model is controversial but has been ruled by US regulators and the World Health Organization as safe and scientifically important.

At GHTC, we get to read stories every day about incredible innovations in global health. Most of the technologies we see are inventive, some are revolutionary, and a few are so unusual, one might think they were ripped from the pages of a science fiction novel. Now, we’re testing how well you know these global health technologies with our annual Halloween game: the TRICK or TREATment quiz.For each question, we will present a description of a global health technology. Choose TREATment if you believe this innovation exists. Choose TRICK if you think we are trying to pull one over on you and, instead, the product is still in development or is just a figment of our imagination. 

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. Last Wednesday, Moderna announced that its combination COVID-19 and flu shot, mRNA-1083, demonstrated strong immunogenicity in a phase 1/2 trial. The trial found that mRNA-1083 was similarly effective to two already approved flu vaccines developed by GSK and Sanofi and Moderna’s own SpikeVax COVID-19 vaccine. There were also no new safety concerns reported with the combination vaccine compared to each of the vaccines used alone. A phase 3 trial testing the combination shot will begin before the end of the year with potential regulatory approval in 2025 if successful. The company also laid out its broader efforts on combination vaccines, including a combination shot for COVID-19, flu, and respiratory syncytial virus.The Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) has awarded Vir Biotechnology $50 million in Project NextGen funds to advance the development of novel monoclonal antibody (mAb) candidates and delivery solutions for COVID-19 and future pandemic threats.  The new funding will support development of alternative mAb delivery technologies that increase antibody expression relative to existing solutions, which could revolutionize mAb delivery by expanding administration options and shortening development and manufacturing timelines. Four-fifth of the funding will specifically go toward advancing Vir’s next-generation COVID-19 mAb, Vir-7229, through a phase 1 trial, expected to be completed in late 2025, while the remainder will support the discovery of new mAbs against a second pathogen of pandemic potential.The World Health Organization (WHO) last week recommended the R21/Matrix-M malaria vaccine, developed by the University of Oxford. This follows two years after WHO recommended RTS,S, the first malaria vaccine. Both vaccines have a similar efficacy profile and delivery method and are targeted to children, but doses of R21 are expected to be cheaper—between $2.00 and $4.00 compared to about $7.25 now charged for RTS,S. The Serum Institute, which will produce R21, has also announced plans to deliver a much higher volume of doses compared to GSK’s current marketing plans for RTS,S. Although it will take more time to collect further safety monitoring data for R21, the recommendation of a second vaccine will hopefully help to ensure adequate supply for malaria-endemic countries that are planning to integrate a vaccine into their national malaria control plans.

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. The latest funding from the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority’s (BARDA’s) Project NextGen will go to Gritstone bio for a large-scale phase 2b study of its mRNA COVID-19 vaccine candidate. $433 million will go toward the trial, expected to start early next year, which will test the company’s vaccine against an already approved one. Gritstone’s candidate aims to provide broader and longer-lasting clinical protection than first-generation COVID-19 vaccines by inducing multiple types of immunity against current and future variants of the virus that causes COVID-19.Two recent studies reviewing the efficacy and safety of higher dose regimens of the antimalarial drug primaquine bolster support for increasing doses in malaria-endemic countries. Primaquine has been used against Plasmodium vivax malaria for more than 60 years, but this new research provides the answer to a problem designated by the World Health Organization as a key research priority: how to reduce malaria relapse. The studies found that doubling the currently used dose of primaquine halved malaria relapses, while delivering a similar safety profile to the lower dose regimen, suggesting widespread implementation of higher dosing could have a significant impact on reducing P. vivax malaria relapses, deaths, and transmission in endemic countries.New research into an innovative injected hydrogel drug method for treating HIV offers hope of a completely novel management method that could drastically reduce the frequency of treatment and eliminate the need for daily pills, greatly improving the quality of life of people living with HIV. The researchers found that one injection of the gel in mice was enough to maintain effective and lasting concentrations of the drug lamivudine for 42 days with nearly no side effects by ensuring the drug was released slowly and consistently in the body. Further tests will look at the hydrogel used in combination with others drugs to prevent HIV as well as simultaneously address HIV and hepatitis B.