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Physicians: Global Vaccine Development Fund Could Save Billions

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PHARMACEUTICAL PROCESSING by  Princeton University, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs   Aug. 6, 2015

Ebola is a preventable disease, and yet a safe and effective vaccine has not been deployed. As with many vaccines, financial barriers persist: pharmaceutical companies see high costs with limited market potential, and government support is lacking. But there may be a solution to this vaccine crisis with the ability to save at-risk populations, according to a perspective piece written by physicians based at Princeton University, University of Pennsylvania and the Wellcome Trust.

The article, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, proposes the creation of a $2 billion global vaccine-development fund - supported by governments, foundations and pharmaceutical companies - that would carry promising vaccines through development to deployment. With initial support, the global vaccine fund could help make vaccines available for emergency use.

In the case of Ebola, vaccine candidates were available well before the time of the outbreak, but there were no funds to test them. Had one been tested, public health workers could have vaccinated people from the start, saving thousands of lives. "Preventing infectious diseases should not be held back by a lack of funds. And the economic reality today is that strategic support from government and other investors is needed to address the most difficult infectious disease problems," said essay author Adel Mahmoud, professor at Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and Department of Molecular Biology.

Read complete article
http://www.pharmpro.com/news/2015/08/physicians-global-vaccine-development-fund-could-save-billions?et_cid=4720927&et_rid=628706217&type=headline

Read The New England Journal of Medicine article.
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1506820

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OTTAWA CITIZEN   by Isabel Wallace                            Aug. 9, 2015
Ebola vaccine rVSV-ZEBOV appears to be 100 per cent effective in early human trials in the West African country of Guinea, where 4,000 people have been inoculated against the hemorrhagic fever.

By adopting a “ring” approach to inoculation during field trials – immediately vaccinating everyone who has come into contact with Ebola victims in order to halt the spread of the disease – researchers are finding the vaccine highly promising as a means to limit future outbreaks of the “Zaire” strain of Ebola.

Since rVSV-ZEBOV is made in Canada, and since the government of Canada sponsored the clinical trials in West Africa, these results represent a major achievement for federally funded vaccine research in this country..... The federally funded Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) has helped bring similar successes in sponsoring the development of a candidate vaccine for Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), and in devising research models in support of therapeutic cancer vaccines.

One factor has made these accomplishments possible: significant federal funding for domestic laboratory research and international scientific collaboration.....

With these and other “made-in-Canada” vaccine projects, Canada is beginning to outstrip many prominent European nations in the fields of applied virology and bacteriology, and the current government can claim responsibility for much of this success. However, recent cuts to federal science programs, and recent changes to the way the CIHR distributes its annual 1 billion dollars in research funding, may bring about a reversal of this trend.

Read complete story.
http://ottawacitizen.com/news/national/isabel-wallace-lets-make-sure-the-ebola-vaccine-is-not-canadas-last-vaccine-success-story

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