NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF HEALTH AND GLAXOSMITHKLINE WILL ACCELERATE EBOLA DRUG TESTING ON HUMANS BEGINNING NEXT WEEK The US National Institute of Health (NIH) based in Bethesda, Maryland, said yesterday that it would begin testing an experimental Ebola vaccine on humans as early as next week. This decision amounts to a huge acceleration of the various research steps necessary in the complex US drug approval regime. The new vaccine to be tested on humans beginning next week is a PREVENTIVE one and not a treatment for those already infected. This preventive vaccine was co-developed by GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), a major UK-based pharmaceutical company in association with the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. The plan is to manufacture up to 10,000 doses if the initial safety trials are successful and then use this stockpile for further testing or for emergency immunization for people at high risk of contacting Ebola. Later in September, the N.I.H. in association with the GSK-funded charitable foundation, the Welcome Trust, plus the British Medical Research Council and the Department for International Development (DFID) will test a different version of the same vaccine in the U.K., Mali and the Gambia. Yet another Ebola vaccine developed by the Public Health Agency of Canada and licensed to NewLink Genetics Corporation of Ames, Iowa will undergo safety studies at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in Silver Spring, Maryland. Source: The Wall Street Journal, August 29, 2014
Posted on: Sat, 30 Aug 2014 01:30:28 +0000
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