The candidate vaccine againstrespiratory syncytial virus (VRS)for people over 60 years of age that are being developed by different international groups for the pharmaceutical company GSK, and in which researchers from the Santiago Clinic participate, is called to be “a turning point for other vaccines and in the treatment of this disease in adults”. As explained in conversation with this newspaper by the head of Pediatrics at the University Hospital Complex of Santiago (CHUS), Federico Martinon, whose team is part of the project together with the CHUS Pneumology team led by Dr. Francisco Javier González Barcala.
He stresses that “it is the first vaccine against the virus in adults to complete phase three with positive results, the first to reach this milestone with an efficacy of 80% and even more than 90% in the most serious cases, something very important” .
A milestone in the development of this type of vaccine, since all previous attempts had failed upon reaching phase 3, which is why it emphasizes its importance.
For the trial, the results of which have just been published in the prestigious journal “The New England Journal of Medicine”25,000 people over 60 years of age from eighteen countries have been recruited, among which 80 came from the Compostela health area, according to Martinón, who stresses that “what is important is the size of the study, which is so large at a global level, since “we provide our experience at CHUS, where we work with twelve different molecules between vaccines for children, pregnant women and adults”.
Other projects
The coordinator of the Clinical Vaccine Trials Unit of the Santiago Health Research Institute also emphasizes that this trial marks the way for other projects in less advanced phases such as the candidate vaccine for pregnant women from Pfizer or the one being developed by Jansen similar to that of GSK, but still in phase two.
It could be marketed this year. Asked about the process that the trial must follow until it is commercialized, Dr. Federico Martinon He points out that “depending on the evaluation, if all goes well, by the end of the year it could have approval from the European Medicines Agency.”
Regarding the period until reaching phase three, he points out that since the patients were recruited they have been working there for three years, and indicates that each of them has been followed up for seven months to “see how they continue its evolution, as well as measuring the protection of the vaccine and how far it lasts”.
The vaccine focuses on protection for older than 60 years against a pathology that affects adults and children in different ways and, however, is more frequent in children, to the point that children become infected and “one in every 56 infants who suffer from the disease has to be hospitalized”, and calculates that it causes “150,000 deaths a year in the world”.
That is why “pediatricians are looking forward to the use of new generation monoclonal antibodies for newborns that, although they are not a vaccine, do offer protection for at least five months.”
