Inviragen collaborates with International Vaccine Institute to accelerate dengue vaccine

SEOUL, South Korea/FORT COLLINS – The International Vaccine Institute and Inviragen Inc. have signed a memorandum of understanding to help make a dengue vaccine widely accessible to people in countries where the disease is endemic.

Fort Collins-based Inviragen is approaching the end of its Phase I clinical trials of the DENVax vaccine. Dan Stinchcomb, CEO of Inviragen, told the Business Report Daily that Phase II trials should begin next year in dengue-endemic settings in Central and South America and Southeast Asia.

“We did our Phase I trials at high altitude in Columbia, where there is no dengue, but where people are very aware of the disease, and it was easy to recruit volunteers,” he said.

At least 2.5 billion people, or two-fifths of the world’s population, are at risk of contracting dengue, a mosquito-borne infection which causes severe flu-like symptoms, according to IVI. No specific treatment or reliable prevention method exists for the infection, which is already endemic in more than 120 countries and continues to grow.

The collaboration between the South Korean nonprofit IVI and Inviragen will also focus beyond research and development to facilitating the introduction and availability of a safe and effective vaccine in places where it is needed, Stinchcomb explained. While Invirigen proceeds with its trials – Phase III should be completed by the end of 2013 – IVI, through its recently launched Dengue Vaccine Initiative, will be gathering data on the effects of dengue on the countries in which the research is being done.

“Officials need to know what is the cost of people continuing to contract dengue, a debilitating disease, and what the burden is to the public health structure,” Stinchcomb said. “DVI will research that and be able to provide detailed data to the ministries of health. Once the vaccine is available, anything that helps move acceptance forward faster, so that fewer people contract the disease, will have a bigger impact on public health.”

DVI is a collaboration with IVI, the Sabin Vaccine Institute, Johns Hopkins University, and the World Health Organization, funded through a $6.9 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and in partnership with governments, industry and the scientific community.

Stinchcomb said he plans to present the results of Inviragen’s Phase I trials at the American Association of Tropical Medicine annual meeting in December.

For more information, go to www.inviragen.com or http://denguevaccine.org.