Japanese drugmaker Takeda Pharmaceutical Co on Thursday said it is developing a vaccine to prevent the Zika virus, which has been linked to severe birth defects, and has secured funding from a US government agency.
Takeda, which is also working on vaccines for other mosquito-borne viruses such as dengue, said it would initially receive nearly US$20 million over the next 18 months to fund preclinical research and manufacturing in preparation for early human trials.
The contract is with US Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), a unit within the US Department of Health and Human Services.
It calls for funding of up to US$312 million if the agency deems the vaccine worthy of moving through late stage testing and filing for approval, the company said.
Takeda has been conducting preclinical testing for several months and hopes to begin Phase I trials in healthy volunteers in the second half of next year, the firm’s vaccine business unit president Rajeev Venkayya said in a telephone interview.
The company said it was also in discussions with the Japanese government on its possible participation in the Zika collaboration.
The Takeda vaccine would utilize inactivated, or killed, whole Zika virus to promote an immune response, Venkayya said.
The vaccines now in early human testing are DNA-based and contain no actual virus.
“To help protect people from Zika in the US and abroad, we are aggressively pursuing the development of promising vaccine candidates around the world,” BARDA acting director Richard Hatchett said in a statement.
BARDA said that including the Takeda funding, it has so far committed US$76 million to help develop Zika vaccines, diagnostics, blood-screening tests and other technologies to fight the virus.
Takeda joins several companies and government agencies in efforts to develop a vaccine against the virus that has spread across the Americas since the current outbreak was first detected last year in Brazil.
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