Manufacturers developing Ebola vaccines will be immune from lawsuits following a decision by US HHS (Health and Human Services) to issue a declaration on the matter.
The WHO has accused biopharma firms of failing to invest in R&D to tackle Ebola due to the disease’s prevalence in poor African nations, as the death toll surpasses 4,000.
ZMapp, the experimental Ebola therapy given to a handful of infected patients in West Africa, is being produced in tobacco plants for Mapp Biopharmaceutical by CMO Kentucky Bioprocessing in collaboration with drugmaker Defyrus.
G-CON has responded to the ongoing Ebola virus outbreak in West Africa by retooling its “vaccine facility in a box” PODs as patient isolation units to help stop the spread of the disease.
As the death toll from the world’s most expansive Ebola outbreak nears 1,000, multiple companies are stepping up efforts to bring antibodies and other vaccines to human trials, though none seem likely to be ready until 2015 at the earliest.
Two Americans stricken with the Ebola virus in Liberia were flown back to the US following treatment with an unapproved treatment manufactured from tobacco plants in Kentucky. Manufacturing of the treatment is expected to ramp up as the patients improve.
Human clinical trials involving an Ebola vaccine took a step closer
after Dutch biotechnology firm Crucell announced a single dose of
its Ebola vaccine had successfully protected monkeys during trial
tests.
