Breakthroughs Blog: Research Roundup

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. On Friday, the World Health Organization (WHO) released its updated Bacterial Priority Pathogens List 2024, which aims to guide investments and R&D in new antibiotics and promote international coordination to address the rising global threat of antimicrobial resistance (AMR). The updated list, which incorporates new evidence and expert insights, includes 15 families of antibiotic-resistant bacteria grouped into critical, high, and medium categories for prioritization based on their burden and ability to resist treatment and spread resistance to other bacteria. Five pathogen-antibiotic combinations were removed from the new list and four new combinations were added, reflecting the dynamic nature of AMR.Last week, WHO authorized a second vaccine for dengue, which will hopefully offer millions more worldwide protection against the mosquito-borne disease, which is currently behind a major outbreak in the Americas and rising cases globally. The two-dose vaccine, made by Takeda, protects against the four types of dengue and is recommended for use in children between six and sixteen years old in regions with high dengue rates. The decision opens the door for donors and other United Nations agencies to purchase the vaccine for high-burden countries.Last week, the US Food and Drug Administration approved the use of self-collected samples with Roche and BD’s HPV tests, a decision that hopefully will expand access and reduce barriers to HPV screening, allowing more people to detect and treat cervical cancer. Screening for HPV is used to identify those who may be at risk of developing cervical cancer, most cases of which are caused by persistent HPV infection. Traditional screening involves a speculum-involved pelvic exam to screen for cervical cancer, which can be painful or uncomfortable for many patients. Self-collection allows patients to collect their own vaginal samples for screening in a health care setting.

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 week, the Global Health Innovative Technology (GHIT) Fund awarded a two-year grant to the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi) and its partner Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma Corporation to continue lead optimization work on a novel compound to target the Trypanosoma cruzi parasite that causes Chagas disease, a neglected parasitic disease that affects an estimated 6 million people globally every year. Current treatments for Chagas, which were developed decades ago, need to be administered for eight weeks, can have serious and potentially toxic side effects, and have not been proven effective in people with severe chronic symptoms. The partners hope their work will lead to preclinical development candidate compounds and, eventually, a new medicine for Chagas disease that is safe and effective for all patients, including pregnant individuals.Researchers have developed an experimental vaccine that has the potential to protect against a broad range of coronaviruses, including known and as-of-yet-unknown varieties. The experimental vaccine was made by taking harmless proteins shared across different coronaviruses and attaching them to minuscule nanoparticles that are then injected to prime the body’s immune system to broadly target both known and unknown viruses in the same family. The vaccine induced a broad immune response to coronaviruses in mice, including to the pathogen that caused the 2003 Sars outbreak, even though proteins from that virus were not added to the vaccine. If proven safe and effective in humans, this and other proactive vaccines designed to target separate pathogens could be stockpiled by countries along with clear plans to quickly scale up production if a new pandemic-potential pathogen emerges. The universal vaccine can be made in existing facilities for microbial fermentation, and the researchers are already working with industrial partners on how to scale up production. There would need to be new processes designed with medical regulators before approval because there are no current procedures for the regulation of proactive vaccinology.Last Monday, the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority announced the launch of the next generation of its accelerator network, which will include a diagnostics and medical devices program and a therapeutics hub. The former will be called the International Consortium for Research, Engineering, Acceleration of Technology Excellence and will support the development and acceleration of new diagnostics and medical devices aimed at improving health security. Along with three more hubs expected to be announced later this year, these hubs will create a global network to foster the growth of the health security innovation ecosystem, including support across the entire process, from development and evaluation to validation and commercialization of new technologies.

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 team of scientists at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine has discovered a new snakebite treatment that can prevent the devastating skin and muscle damage caused by African spitting cobra venom, which can lead to permanent injuries and disfigurements. There are currently no effective treatments for addressing severe bites caused by venom from the spitting cobra, which is responsible for a substantial portion of snakebites in Africa. The scientists found that repurposing the small molecule drug varespladib to target one of the two major toxins in the venom was effective, even when delivered up to an hour after the bite, and the drug also provided protection from venom-induced muscle toxicity.Newly shared research found that a dose-sparing mpox vaccine approach, which was used during the 2022 mpox outbreak in the United States as global vaccine supplies were stretched, is safe and effective. The study tested an intradermal mpox vaccination regimen in adults using the Jynneos vaccine containing either one-fifth or one-tenth the standard dose, finding the former was generated a comparable antibody response to the standard vaccine regimen. These findings underscore real-world data that have shown similar effectiveness for this dose-sparing intradermal regimen and the standard subcutaneous regimen. The new findings are also timely as a widespread mpox outbreak continues in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.Last week, Kephera Diagnostics announced that it received a two-year $606,498 grant from the US National Institutes of Health to help fund the development of a point-of-care test for congenitally transmitted (or mother-to-child transmitted) Chagas disease, which is believed to be the primary transmission method of the disease in the United States. The company will use the funding to develop a point-of-care blood test that can be used to diagnose infection at the point of delivery by measuring the levels of the antibodies that are believed to be the first to appear in the blood in response to infection and can be differentiated from maternal antibodies. Congenital Chagas can be treated with two drugs that are approved for pediatric use, but because the disease is often asymptomatic in newborns, it can resemble the symptoms of other infections and be hard to correctly diagnose.

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. As reports of H5N1 bird flu circulating in dairy cow herds across the United States continue, the experts in charge of preparing and responding to pandemics are now considering our ability to quickly develop a vaccine if human transmission were to occur in the future. The world has decades of experience producing, regulating, and updating flu vaccines, as well as the recent memory of the incredibly rapid development of vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, current global production capacity for flu vaccines would not yield enough doses quickly enough to vaccinate the large portion of the world’s population that would be necessary to quell a bird flu pandemic. Adjuvants—compounds that boosts immune response to the active vaccine antigen —or the introduction of an mRNA vaccine could, respectively, stretch supplies and speed up production, but it is not clear that there is sufficient production capacity for relevant adjuvants, and it is unclear how close producers are to advancing mRNA flu vaccines to market. Additionally, current flu production capacity is highly concentrated in high-income countries with no flu production in Africa, underlining the potential of another highly inequitable pandemic response.Last week Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV) and Novartis announced positive data from their Phase 2/3 trial in Africa demonstrating the efficacy and safety of a novel formulation of the Coartem® malaria medicine developed for babies weighing less than 5 kilograms. Previously, this population lacked access to an evidence-based treatment option developed specifically for them, with this trial becoming the first evidence-based trial conducted to evaluate a new antimalarial dose and regimen for all infants under 5 kilograms with acute uncomplicated malaria. This population is currently treated with tablets meant for higher-weight children that are simply adjusted for weight, which can lead to overdose and toxicity in smaller kids. The data have been submitted for regulatory review, and if approved, the partners aim to make the treatment available as soon as possible.The Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi) and partners have initiated a Phase 2 clinical trial in Ethiopia testing an innovative, safer, simpler, and patient-friendly medicine to treat visceral leishmaniasis, the world’s deadliest parasitic killer after malaria. Visceral leishmaniasis is currently treated with painful injections that must be given at the hospital daily for 17 days and can cause rare but life-threatening side effects. The hope is that the new drug, which is administered via oral pills, will be efficacious, less toxic, and more accessible than the currently available treatment regimen, ensuring earlier access to treatment. A similar Phase 2 trial is also being conducted in South Asia to test if patients in the two endemic regions respond differently to the treatment.