U.S. government in $300M-plus Zika vaccine R&D deal with Takeda : fiercebiotech

as mentioned in fiercebiotech

U.S. government in $300M-plus Zika vaccine R&D deal with Takeda

U.S. government in $300M-plus Zika vaccine R&D deal with Takeda

The U.S. government's public health emergency department BARDA could pay out more than $300 million to Japanese pharma Takeda to develop a new vaccine against the Zika virus as new figures suggest billions are now at risk of the disease.Under the deal, BARDA will pay out $19.8 million to cover the costs of vaccine development through Phase I, but could also stump up $312 million should things go well.Should this happen, the Authority will fund the research through Phase III along with a filing of a BLA in the U.S. for the vax.


not to mention indiatimes

Bihar doctors claim Zika vaccine leap

Bihar doctors claim Zika vaccine leap

Bihar's Rajendra Memorial Research Institute of Medical Sciences (RMRIMS), a body under the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) on Friday claimed to have developed the first formula to create a vaccine against Zika virus.A Hyderabad-based firm had earlier applied for patent for the vaccine, but sources at RMRIMS said the two vaccines are different."Our vaccine is more cost-effective and it identifies particular proteins of the virus that create resistance, instead of inducing the virus into the body to create immunity," said a researcher at RMRIMS.The facility's research manuscript, 'A First Step towards Vaccine Development' has been sent for publication in Elsevier's international journal, 'Infection, Genetics and Evolution'.According to researchers, they used the online database of proteins made available by US-funded National Centre for Biotechnology Information to identify fragments of the proteins, called peptides, which could be combined with human cells to create immunity against the virus."The process of identifying these peptides to create immunity is called conservancy.