German pharmaceutical company BioNTech (BNTX-USA) on Friday (23) launched an initial study to evaluate its experimental malaria vaccine in humans.
The Phase 1 study will enroll 60 volunteers in the United States with no history of malaria and evaluate the vaccine candidate at the three-dose level.
The vaccine candidate, called BNT165b1, is the first test from BioNTech’s malaria project, which will also build a vaccine production line in Africa.
The work is one of several efforts to tackle the mosquito-borne diseases that kill more than 600,000 people each year, mostly children in Africa. The complex structure and life cycle of the malaria parasite have long hampered efforts to develop a vaccine.
After decades of work, the only currently approved malaria vaccine is Mosquirix, made by British drugmaker GSK, which this year was approved by the World Health Organization (WHO), but lack of funding and commercial potential has prevented GSK from producing as many doses as possible Skill.
Another high-profile achievement is the Oxford University malaria vaccine. Interim study data was released in September. While no direct comparisons have been made, some scientists believe that the Oxford vaccine works better than the Mosquirix vaccine and provides longer-lasting immunity.
BioNTech’s malaria vaccine development remains focused on its mRNA technology, which has been used during the pandemic to rapidly develop a coronavirus vaccine by prompting the body to produce proteins that are part of the pathogen to trigger an immune response.
