TFF Pharmaceuticals Inc. has been awarded a Direct to Phase II Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) to continue development of a novel, mucosal, multivariant influenza vaccine using the company’s thin film freezing (TFF) technology.
To address the absence of clinical trials evaluating immunotherapeutics for Acinetobacter baumannii infections, a team from the University of Texas at San Antonio conducted a study using immunoinformatics (EigenBio’s proprietary epitope prediction software) to identify peptides that contain both putative B- and T-cell epitopes from proteins associated with the pathogenesis of A. baumannii.
Two new polio vaccine candidates designed to prevent the emergence of vaccine-derived virulent polioviruses have been shown to induce immune responses in mice, raising the possibility of eradicating the virus. For that to happen, the transmission of all poliovirus serotypes must be blocked. However, the vaccine used to control polio prevents disease but does not stop transmission, enabling the virus to mutate and regain virulence.
Tuberculosis (TB) is the 13th leading cause of death in the world, and it is rising together with the increased prevalence of drug-resistant TB in many countries. The Bacille Calmette-Guerin (BCG) vaccine is the only available TB vaccine, and it has been given to more people than any other vaccine. While the BCG vaccine has saved tens of millions of lives, it confers suboptimal protection against pulmonary TB as it is limited to providing protection only until early childhood. Significantly, the BCG vaccine is administered intradermally to confer exceptional mucosal immunity as compared to most other vaccines, which are more commonly administered intramuscularly. Novel strategies to improve the duration of TB mucosal immunity are urgently needed.
Defence Therapeutics Inc. has contracted Transbiotech Biotechnology Research and Transfer Center to test the potency of the company’s cellular anticancer ARM vaccine in animals with pre-established pancreatic tumors.
With the rise of antibiotic resistance, treatment options against Yersinia pestis bacteria that cause pneumonic plague could also become limited. Antibody treatment has been effective in animal models of plague, but no approved human vaccine exists against this fatal disease.
Hilleman Laboratories Singapore Pte Ltd. and the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) have established a collaboration to explore using novel circular ribonucleic acid (circRNA) technology to develop a Nipah virus vaccine and to validate the technology platform for application for other infectious diseases pathogens.
China's National Medical Products Administration (NMPA) has given drug clinical trial approval for two new COVID-19 vaccines against the current XBB variants developed by Westvac Biopharma Co. Ltd. and West China Medical Center at Sichuan University.
Multivalent vaccines that could improve SARS-CoV-2 immunity while also preventing infections by other viruses, such as influenza and respiratory syncytial viruses, constitute an urgent public health need. Currently approved vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 are based solely on the spike protein, which provides limited immunity against variations in spike.
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