Early results from GSK and NIH's Phase I Ebola vaccine show promise

UK pharma major GlaxoSmithKline (LSE: GSK) has reported promising preliminary results from a small Phase I trial of its Ebola vaccine, being developed in collaboration with the National Institutes of Health. The results were published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The GSK/NIH Ebola candidate vaccine was well-tolerated and produced an immunological response in each of the 20 healthy adult volunteers in the USA who received it. It uses a chimpanzee cold virus (ChAd3) as a carrier to deliver genetic material from the Sudan strain and the Zaire strain of the Ebola virus. This bivalent version is being developed alongside a monovalent Zaire strain-only version, which is the strain responsible for the current outbreak in West Africa.

Moncef Slaoui, chairman of global vaccines at GSK, said: “If the combined data from these trials are positive, the next phases of the clinical trial program will begin in early 2015 to see whether the immune response we are seeing in Phase I actually translates into providing people in affected countries with meaningful protection against Ebola. These Phase III trials will involve the vaccination of thousands of volunteers, including frontline health care workers in affected countries, including Liberia and Sierra Leone, and possibly Guinea. If the candidate vaccine is able to protect these health care workers as we hope it will, it could significantly contribute to efforts to bring this epidemic under control.”