Johnson & Johnson has received funding of about 100 million Euros or $115 million to fast track and speed up Ebola vaccine research through a private-public partnership, announced the company on Friday. The money came from Europe's Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI).
The money will be given for J&J to speed up their development and testing of an Ebola vaccine that will promise to eradicate the epidemic that killed more than 8,000 people and infected at least 21,000 people in West Africa last year.
A newly created consortium with leading global research institutions and non-government organizations like London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, the University of Oxford and the Institut National de la Sante et de la Recherche Medicale was established to work together in one common purpose, to finally develop an Ebola vaccine to curb the epidemic that took a toll on West Africa.
"In the face of the global challenge of Ebola, bringing together the expertise and capabilities of the pharmaceutical industry, academic centers and NGOs will be critical to help solve this crisis," said Paul Stoffels, M.D., Chief Scientific Officer and Worldwide Chairman, Pharmaceuticals, Johnson & Johnson in a press release.
"The European Commission's support through IMI bolsters collaboration that should significantly accelerate efforts to help address this humanitarian crisis," he added.
According to Health Care Innovation, the trials are led by Oxford Vaccine Group and they are expected to complete them by the end of January. In phase 1 of the trial, human trials will be conducted to make sure the vaccine is safe and effective. Patients will be given a dose to kick start the immune system and then boosters will be initiated to enhance the immune response over time.
The first in-human trials started on January 2015 wherein they have produced around have 400,000 regimens of the prime-boost vaccine for use in large-scale clinical trials by April 2015.
The Ebola outbreak is the worst one in history and efforts are being made to eradicate the virus and curb the outbreak which started over a year ago in Guinea, West Africa. The origin of the virus remains a mystery though it was reported that bats were the main source of the virus. There is still no known cure for Ebola though vaccines are being developed for human trials.
