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Leading drugmakers plan to work together to speed up the development of an Ebola vaccine and hope to produce millions of doses for use next year.
Europe is also expected to announce 200 million euros (Sh22.7 billion) of funding to develop new Ebola vaccines, drugs and diagnostic tests.
US firm Johnson & Johnson said it aims to produce at least a million doses of its two-step vaccine next year and has discussed collaboration with Britain’s GlaxoSmithKline, which is also working on a vaccine.
The economics of an Ebola vaccine are still unclear but drug companies with an eye on their reputations are under pressure to respond to the major international health crisis ravaging one of the poorest corners of Africa.
J&J’s head of research Paul Stoffels said it was important to have several experimental vaccine candidates in development, since it is not clear which ones will work, but resources could in future be focused on one winner.
GSK’s chief executive Andrew Witty said a meeting of experts in Geneva would discuss ways to ensure all companies, including those with no direct involvement in the Ebola work, pulled together to remove supply bottlenecks.
Much of the European funding is likely to be used to help finance clinical trials of three experimental vaccines.
Bioterror weapon
There is currently no proven vaccine against the deadly disease and drug companies have been wary in the past of pouring resources into Ebola since previous outbreaks have been small.
As a result, much of the research effort to date has been driven not by concerns about sporadic outbreaks in Africa but by fears in the West that Ebola might become a bioterror weapon.
Clinical tests on GSK’s vaccine and another from NewLink Genetics are underway, while human tests on J&J’s vaccine will start in January. — Reuters
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