Mymetics Corporation, a pioneer in the research and development of virosome-based vaccines to prevent transmission of human infectious diseases, announced that the PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative (MVI) has chosen Mymetics to develop and produce virosome based vaccine formulations for a malaria transmission-blocking vaccine candidate. MVI is a global programme whose objective is to accelerate the development of malaria vaccines and catalyze timely access in endemic countries.
Mymetics’ proprietary virosome technology platform and its specialist virosome know-how has been selected to develop an innovative Malaria transmission-blocking vaccine candidate in partnership with the Laboratory of Malaria Immunology and Vaccinology (LMIV) of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
These new virosome vaccine candidates will each incorporate two different malaria parasite proteins supplied by LMIV and will be then separately tested in animal studies.
The project will start in November 2014, and preclinical results are expected by early 2016.
If this study is successful, the next step could be to prepare for clinical trials for a malaria transmission-blocking virosome vaccine and also explore the possibilities to combine this vaccine with other malaria vaccine candidates which are focused on other aspects of preventing malaria. Mymetics has shown separately in 2011 in a privately funded Phase 1b clinical trial in Tanzania that a virosome based vaccine for Plasmodium falciparum could reduce malaria episodes in children by more than 50% 1).
According to the World Health Organization, in 2013, 97 countries had ongoing malaria transmission. There were an estimated 207 million cases of malaria in 2012 and an estimated 627 000 deaths.
The PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative (MVI) is a global program established at PATH through an initial grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Laboratory of Malaria Immunology and Vaccinology (LMIV), NIAID conducts and supports research—at NIH, throughout the United States, and worldwide—to study the causes of infectious and immune-mediated diseases, and to develop better means of preventing, diagnosing and treating these illnesses.
Mymetics Corporation is a Swiss-based biotechnology company registered in the US and trades on the OTCQB venture stage marketplace for early stage and developing US and international companies.