World Mosquito Day 2021: Test your mozzie mastery

Interested in more global health innovation news? Every week GHTC scours media reports worldwide to deliver essential global health R&D news and content to your inbox. Sign up now to receive our weekly R&D News Roundup email. Moderna is launching human trials for two new HIV vaccines based on the mRNA technology used in its COVID-19 vaccine, the company announced last week. The phase 1 trial will recruit 56 participants between the ages of 18 and 50 to assess the vaccines’ safety and ability to generate a broad range of neutralizing antibodies against HIV. The two vaccine candidates, mRNA-1644 and mRNA-1574, are designed to combat HIV by inducing broadly neutralizing antibodies to levels not previously obtained by other shots. The antibodies can then target multiple variants of HIV and neutralize stable parts of the virus that won’t change as much as it mutates. The study, expected to run until May 2023, is a first step in a long, complex process, according to researchers.Researchers have discovered a series of drug compounds that are highly effective against the three main species of parasitic worms that cause human schistosomiasis, according to new research published in PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases. Currently, the only treatment for schistosomiasis is praziquantel, which is effective at a high dose against adult worms, but less so against juvenile worms, requiring repeat treatment. The new research involved screening more than 300,000 compounds to evaluate their ability to kill the worms, compared against praziquantel. The researchers identified a series of promising new drug candidates that appeared safe and highly effective against adult and juvenile worms—in a single dose around 10 times smaller than required for praziquantel. The drugs are now being explored by Merck Global Health Institute as a potential treatment for schistosomiasis.In phase 3 trial results, AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 antibody treatment, AZD7442, significantly reduced the risk of developing COVID-19 symptoms. The drug, a combination of two long-acting antibodies, reduced the risk of developing symptoms by 77 percent when given to patients who had not been exposed to COVID-19. No participants who were given the treatment developed a severe form of the disease. The monoclonal antibodies used in AZD7442, which mimic the body's natural immune response, were modified to be more long-lasting, potentially affording up to 12 months of protection. The drug could be particularly useful as a preventative treatment in patients for whom vaccines might be less effective, including immunocompromised individuals, AstraZeneca said in its statement. The company plans to submit the phase 3 results to a peer-reviewed journal and file for regulatory approval of the drug.

Interested in more global health innovation news? Every week GHTC scours media reports worldwide to deliver essential global health R&D news and content to your inbox. Sign up now to receive our weekly R&D News Roundup email. In a small study, nine people who received lab-made monoclonal antibodies were deliberately exposed to mosquitoes carrying the parasite that causes malaria—and did not become infected. In comparison, five of six people in the untreated control group developed the disease. The monoclonal antibody works by binding to a small portion of the circumsporozoite protein that studs the surface of the sporelike stage of the Plasmodium falciparum organism. While the trial was too small to confirm efficacy of the antibodies as a preventive method, the study will act as a proof of principle and open a new avenue for malaria prevention. The research team is now developing a new monoclonal antibody that is two to three times as potent, which it intends to test next year in a clinical trial in Mali. A single injection of pre-exposure prophylaxis—or PrEP, used as an HIV prevention method—once every two months lowered HIV risk by 66 percent more than a daily pill, according to results from a three-year, real-world study. The study tested a single 600 milligram shot of cabotegravir, a long-acting antiretroviral cocktail, against Truvada, a daily oral antiretroviral drug regimen, among more than 4,500 patients. The difference in effectiveness was primarily a result of adherence, according to the research team—the PrEP shot guaranteed two months of protective medicine, while the pill regimen relies on maintaining a strict daily schedule. The bimonthly cabotegravir injection is currently under review by the US Food and Drug Administration, with a decision expected in late 2021 or early 2022.On Friday, Bharat Biotech’s intranasal COVID-19 vaccine received regulatory approval in India to begin phase 2/3 trials after the nasal spray was well-tolerated in a phase 1 trial of volunteers aged 18 to 60. The adenoviral intranasal vaccine was safe, immunogenic, and well-tolerated in the preclinical toxicity studies and was able to elicit high levels of neutralizing antibodies in animal studies. The vaccine, known as BBV154, is the first nasal spray COVID-19 vaccine to undergo human trials in India. Bharat Biotech’s injectable COVID-19 vaccine, Covaxin, is already authorized for emergency use in India after demonstrating 77.8 percent efficacy against symptomatic COVID-19 and 93.4 percent efficacy against severe illness during its phase 3 clinical trials.