Merck staph vaccine enters phase II
From Forbes:
VIENNA, Aug 28 (Reuters) – Austrian biotech firm Intercell <ICEL.VI> said on Thursday its partner Merck & Co <MRK.N> has started a Phase II clinical trial to evaluate a vaccine candidate against Staphylococcus aureus infections.
Merck is responsible for clinical development, manufacturing and marketing of the vaccine. Intercell is eligible to receive milestone payments and royalties on future net sales
This is the second trial start following a separate Phase II trial launch in December 2007.
And according to Vaczine :
A wider challenge beyond the technical aspects of Staph vaccine development will be choosing the appropriate future vaccination strategy. Presently it does seem logical to protect defined groups at high risk from Staph bacteremias; however, many experts believe that in terms of overall societal burden, preventing Staph SSTIs and reducing carriage should also be high priorities. Lessening these would involve some form of population-based vaccination with one US expert venturing that a Staph vaccine should be on the pediatric schedule. Opponents to this ambitious concept are likely to raise the issue of cost and the fear of “over vaccination” but at least in immunological terms potential vaccinees could be protected for life having sufficient time to develop protective immunity. The present evolving strategy of vaccinating patients to be hospitalized needs a rapid acting vaccine. Based on this research VacZine Analytics believes it should be considered the starting point of something bigger.
Regular InsideVaccines readers are probably already familiar with the topic of staph and how it relates to vaccines already on the pediatric schedule from our Sisyphus series.
Most probably knew a vaccine for staph was on its way soon, but it’s still interesting to see it happening so quickly.
Also, it’s informative to learn from history about how universal recommendations for infants come about. This is about the rotavirus vaccine for infants, but the principal of the politics probably applies to most or all vaccines:
Public confidence and the support of vaccine providers for vaccination recommendations, although difficult to quantify, are important factors in the decision-making process. Ethical distinctions between causing significant morbidity in some children while averting disease among others are a consideration, given that oral rehydration therapy for rotavirus infection has no associated risks.
Although B. Murphy et al. [6] suggest that the ACIP could have made a permissive recommendation for RRV-TV, the manufacturer stated that it would not market RRV-TV without a universal recommendation for RRV-TV [11].
Comments
One Comment on Merck staph vaccine enters phase II
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wallacesmum on
Mon, 29th Sep 2008 5:17 pm
So what’s next? Prevnar and Hib cause babies to get staph, staphvax causes babies to get….
I love that the pharmas get to “threaten” not to market their own products, in order to scare te CDC into toeing the line.
Tell me what you're thinking...
and oh, if you want a pic to show with your comment, go get a gravatar!
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