GSK signs needle-free vaccine alliance
pharmafile | December 16, 2009 | News story | Research and Development, Sales and Marketing | GlaxoSmithKline, Intercell, patch, vaccines
GlaxoSmithKline has signed a deal with Intercell to see whether any of its vaccines could be made available in patch form.
GSK’s new alliance with the Vienna-based company will also look at developing Intercell’s candidate vaccine for travellers’ diarrhoea and an investigational pandemic influenza vaccine.
Providing needle-free treatments could enable patients to use them more effectively because administration is simpler and faster to deliver.
“This novel technology has real potential to change the way vaccines are delivered in the future,” said Jean Stephenne, president of GSK Biologicals.
GSK will make an up-front cash payment of $49.4 million, plus an equity investment of up to $123 million through a staggered shareholding purchase option, which means GSK could take up to 5% of Intercell’s shares.
“This new partnership is combining the forces of Intercell’s innovative needle-free vaccination programme and technologies with a vaccine leader’s strength in development and commercialisation,” said Intercell chief executive Gerd Zettlmeissl.
Intercell has similar agreements with a variety of large pharma companies, including Novartis, Merck & Co, Wyeth and Sanofi Pasteur.
Its travellers’ diarrhoea vaccine is in phase III clinical development with 1,800 subjects travelling from Europe to Mexico and Guatemala.
Intercell says that, if it is approved, it will be the first vaccine delivered with a patch and the first to prevent travellers’ diarrhoea, a condition which affects 20 million travellers per year in Asia, Africa, and South America.
Analysis of a phase II field study of 170 travellers, published in The Lancet, suggested that the patch reduced the risk of moderate to severe TD by 75%.
If approved, the pandemic influenza vaccine enhancement (VE) patch could expand the limited vaccine supplies by allowing fewer or lower doses of vaccine.
When used in a combination with an injected pandemic influenza vaccine (H5N1), the VE patch enhanced immune response to the vaccine after one dose.
The seroconversion rate of 70% meets FDA and EMEA standards for approval of a pandemic vaccine, and the patch has been part-funded by the US Department of Health and Human Services.
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