By Noemie Bisserbe And Betsy McKay
PARIS--Drug companies are beginning early-stage research to
develop a new vaccine against the rapidly spreading Zika virus,
joining the race to control an outbreak that the World Health
Organization said constitutes a global public-health emergency.
It might be years, however, before any vaccine reaches the
market, meaning the new wave of research is unlikely to help curb
the current outbreak. Though Zika generally makes people only
mildly ill for a few days, it has been linked to a serious birth
defect in which babies are born with undersized skulls and
brains.
Zika's explosive spread could give pharmaceutical companies a
new opportunity in an increasingly important category of drugs, but
the impact of a vaccine would depend on the prevalence of the virus
when it hit the market, and the ability and willingness of
governments to launch massive vaccination campaigns.
To attack Zika, French drugmaker Sanofi SA said Tuesday it would
take advantage of the research it did for its newly approved
vaccine for dengue fever--the world's first against the
mosquito-borne illness. The Zika and dengue viruses are in the same
family.
"Theoretically, there could be some cross immunity," said
Nicholas Jackson, global head of research at the company's Sanofi
Pasteur vaccines unit, who will be running the new project. "We
will need to investigate this clinically."
U.S. biotech company NewLink Genetics Corp. said it too was
working on developing treatment options for the disease.
NewLink's infectious-disease team felt that searching for a Zika
vaccine "was a project they could really sink their teeth into,"
said Charles Link, the company's chief executive.
NewLink hasn't begun human testing of any potential Zika vaccine
candidates. "This is going to take some time and effort," said Dr.
Link. "This is not going to be an overnight deal."
Epidemic diseases generally draw little investment from
pharmaceutical companies because demand for those products is
sporadic and unpredictable.
The WHO, the U.S. government, the pharmaceutical industry and
others are working on ways to improve research and development for
epidemic diseases, in the wake of the Ebola crisis in West Africa
and as new epidemics such as Zika emerge.
At least a dozen Ebola vaccine and drug candidates were under
development when the virus began to spread in West Africa.
Even so, there is still no licensed treatment or vaccine. One
vaccine candidate, developed by NewLink and licensed out to Merck
& Co. proved effective in a clinical trial, and the company is
gathering data to apply for licensure.
The WHO, the United Nations public-health agency, acting on the
recommendations of an emergency committee, on Monday called for
more surveillance, research and efforts to control the virus's
spread. Currently, there are no rapid and reliable diagnostic
tests, drugs or vaccines for Zika.
Last month, GeneOne Life Science Inc., a South Korean
biopharmaceutical company, said it had launched a joint research
program with U.S. biotech firm Inovio Pharmaceuticals to develop a
DNA-based vaccine to prevent and treat the Zika virus infection.
U.K. drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline also said last week that it was
assessing its research platform for the potential to develop a Zika
vaccine.
The U.S. National Institutes of Health also is accelerating
research into rapid diagnostic tests, vaccines, and therapeutic
drugs for Zika, said Anthony Fauci, director of the National
Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, an arm of the
NIH.
The NIH has long conducted research into flaviviruses, the class
of viruses to which Zika belongs, with about $97 million in funding
in fiscal 2015. But none was going into Zika, Dr. Fauci said.
The institute is pursuing two different pathways to a Zika
vaccine, and may get one into an early Phase I clinical trial this
year, he said. But, he cautioned: "We will not have a widely
available safe and effective Zika vaccine this year and probably
not even in the next few years."
The once-obscure virus has become a major global health concern
over the past few months, mainly because of its possible links to
microcephaly in babies and Guillain-Barré, a rare disorder in which
the body's immune system attacks nerve cells.
Health authorities in Brazil, whereas many as 1.5 million people
may be infected with the Zika virus, have confirmed 270 cases of
microcephaly since October.
Brazil isn't alone. Authorities now say they believe that some
cases of microcephaly in babies in French Polynesia may be linked
to an outbreak of Zika that occurred there in 2013 and 2014.
Brazilian and international health authorities also say Zika may be
linked to a rise in the number of cases of Guillain-Barré
syndrome.
Dr. Fauci said Zika is "the latest of a series of mosquito-borne
diseases that have expanded their reach in the past 20 years or
so." It follows dengue and chikungunya, he said.
"There will almost certainly be others," he said. "We need
vaccine platforms that can be quickly modified for protection
against emerging new threats and we need broad spectrum antiviral
drugs effective against whole classes of viruses."
Peter Loftus and Denise Roland contributed to this article.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
February 02, 2016 17:09 ET (22:09 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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