EVI and Hilleman Labs announce vaccine project support from EDCTP

The European Vaccine Initiative (EVI) and Hilleman Laboratories,  an equal joint-venture partnership between US pharma major Merck & Co (NYSE: MRK) and the Wellcome Trust,  today announced that a multidisciplinary, international consortium coordinated by EVI has now received support from the European and Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership (EDCTP) to advance a safe, efficacious and affordable Shigella vaccine being developed by Hilleman Laboratories.

The project will be funded by EDCTP through a grant of 8.6 million euros ($9.4 million).

Elaborating about the project, Dr Stefan Jungbluth, head of business development at EVI, said: “Through this project we aim to further develop a novel oral vaccine against Shigella that we expect will cover the commonly isolated pathogenic strains of this bacteria. This vaccine, pioneered by our partner, Hilleman Laboratories from India, has been optimized for use in low resource settings. It has a cost-of-goods advantage and is easy to manufacture and deliver.”