AstraZeneca’s MedImmune joins Human Vaccines Project
pharmafile | October 13, 2015 | News story | Research and Development | Human Vaccines Project, MedImmune
MedImmune has joined the Human Vaccines Project, which aims to accelerate the research and development of vaccines and immunotherapies for infectious diseases and cancer.
The Human Vaccines Project is based at the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI)- a new public-private partnership seeking to transform the future of global disease prevention and treatment by solving the primary scientific obstacles impeding the research and development of new vaccines and immunotherapies.
Endorsed by 35 leading vaccine scientists, the Project brings together top academic research centers, and government, non-profit and industry research and development efforts into a global consortium.
The Project’s strategy is to accelerate the development of vaccines and immunotherapies by decoding the human immune system. Its Human Immunome program is seven-to-10-year effort to sequence the adaptive components of the immune system across diverse populations to provide an indispensable “parts list” allowing for the design of highly targeted new vaccines/therapies.
Its Rules of Immunogenicity program focuses on conducting large numbers of small, iterative human clinical research trials to probe the immune system to systematically solve the key problems impeding vaccine/immunotherapy development.
These programs aim to dramatically transform the nature of vaccine and immunotherapy development, and thus disease prevention and treatment.
MedImmune-the biologics arm of AZ- will have an important role to play in helping establish the Project’s global consortium, launch its research program and guide its scientific plan and future direction as a participant of the consortium and member of the Industrial Advisory Committee, a panel of leading industry partners that will advise the Project on its scientific plan and future direction.
“The human immune system is one of the most potent tools medicine has in the fight against disease,” says Ronald Herbst, vice president, Oncology Research & Development, MedImmune. “We look forward to sharing our biologics expertise in immunology and infectious disease, while working with some of the key leaders in this area to help advance drug and vaccine development against a wide range of diseases.”
Wayne Koff, IAVI chief scientific officer and co-founder of the Human Vaccines Project, adds: “Engagement with leading industry partners such as MedImmune is central to achieving the Project’s ultimate goal of revolutionising vaccine and immunotherapy development to create a new paradigm for global disease prevention.”
“Industrial partnerships in global research and development initiatives such as the Human Vaccines Project are essential prerequisites for success, and we welcome MedImmune to the rapidly growing number of partners in the Project’s global consortium,” says Ian Gust, Project Board member, Professorial Fellow at the University of Melbourne and a long-time leader in the field of vaccinology.
Joel Levy
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