Omnia Biologics seals TB vaccine production deal
Vaccine Foundation in its quest to make quantities of a new TB
Vaccine that will "fulfil all the needs of the developing
world."
Omnia is a biologics contract manufacturer offering services in the areas of process development, GMP manufacture and fill-finish for preclinical and Phase I clinical programs for therapeutics that do not have effective or known manufacturing protocols.
Under the new deal, the firm will provide Aeras with vaccine process and production services in the development of a "promising new tuberculosis (TB) vaccine technology based on a validated platform," said the firm.
No other details were disclosed.
Aeras is a non-profit organisation founded to help develop new vaccines to control and eliminate the global TB epidemic.
Two billion people - one third of the world's population - have been infected with TB and it is the world's second deadliest infectious disease - killing two million people each year, primarily in the developing world.
Aeras aims to develop at least one new TB vaccine within the next decade and in anticipation of success, has recently opened a new $10m (€7.9bn) laboratory and manufacturing facility, which it claims will be able to manufacture, in bulk, all of the developing world's needs for a new TB Vaccine.
"Using advanced manufacturing technology and capable of producing 150m vaccine doses per year, the facility ensures rapid scale up of the production of new vaccines," said the organisation.
Aeras's vaccine-development programme, which began in 2004, is being funded by a five-year, $82.9m grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
In 2004 Aeras also received a three-year, $2.7m grant from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and in 2005 Danida, the Danish Government's development agency, also invested $785,000.
