Despite the availability of flu vaccines for decades, influenza is still an important disease in both developing and developed countries with 500,000 casualties annually and many more people affected. From a global health perspective, the lack of effectivity, availability, affordability and accessibility of flu vaccines significantly limits our ability to respond to the seasonal flu every year and in the event of a pandemic. Currently, a low vaccine effectivity of 40% implies that 60% of vaccinated people are not sufficiently protected, with low confidence further contributing to limited uptake/immunization. In this project, public and private R&D organizations in India, EU and US collaborate on the development of two novel influenza vaccine concepts that meet the requirements of global vaccination, aiming to achieve <10% instead of 60% non-responders, lower costs, and better accessibility.
The first approach combines a low dose of a commercial, inactivated, seasonal flu vaccine with a novel, potent adjuvant, and will deliver proof-of-concept in Phase I and IIa trials within 5 years.
The second approach builds on three innovations: 1) a novel recombinant HA with increased immunogenicity, 2) a potent adjuvant, and 3) an easy, needle-free delivery by intradermal patches. Contra-productive parts of HA will be removed to increase the immunogenicity of neutralizing epitopes. The adjuvant further stimulates protective immunity and immunological memory. The use of intradermal patches opens possibilities for self-administration, which will improve vaccine uptake in developing as well as developed countries. With proven nonclinical immunogenicity and safety, we will embark on clinical development of this concept after completion of the project.
These plans differ in complexity and timelines but are realistic with chances to deliver next-generation flu vaccines for the globe.
Are you the coordinator (or a participant) of this project? Plaese send me more information about the "INDIGO" project.
For instance: the website url (it has not provided by EU-opendata yet), the logo, a more detailed description of the project (in plain text as a rtf file or a word file), some pictures (as picture files, not embedded into any word file), twitter account, linkedin page, etc.
Send me an email (fabio@fabiodisconzi.com) and I put them in your project's page as son as possible.
Thanks. And then put a link of this page into your project's website.
The information about "INDIGO" are provided by the European Opendata Portal: CORDIS opendata.
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