Brazil / India: Pharma Vaccine Know-How

Two innovative tech transfer initiatives in Brazil and India promise to provide these countries with access to state-of-the-art technologies and expertise, spurring local vaccine R&D. Brazil's major vaccine producer, the state-owned Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (known as Fiocruz) of Rio de Janeiro has entered a tech transfer deal with London-based GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), which will enable local researchers to produce GSK's Synflorix pneumococcal vaccine as well as develop vaccines against dengue fever, yellow fever and malaria. In India, Merck of Whitehouse Station, New Jersey, and the London-based charity Wellcome Trust will invest equally in a not-for-profit joint venture focused on developing affordable vaccines for diseases that commonly affect developing countries. The MSD Wellcome Trust Hilleman Laboratories (MWTHL) will be set up near New Delhi with a combined cash contribution of $130 million over seven years, with the focus on vaccine R&D, taking projects to proof-of-concept stage. The GSK-Fiocruz deal builds on decades of experience at the state-owned Fiocruz in negotiating tech transfer agreements. Vaccines against meningococcus types A and C produced by Fiocruz's technical-scientific unit, the Immunobiologicals Technology Institute in Rio de Janeiro (Bio-Manguinhos), which develops vaccines, reagents and diagnostic kits, have also originated from research spurred by technology acquired from the French Mérieux Institute in Paris in the 1970s. Later deals with the Japanese Biken Institute of Osaka University and the Japan Poliomyelitis Research Institute in Tokyo have helped Fiocruz build expertise in both measles and polio vaccinology. In addition, Bio-Manguinhos currently produces vaccines against Haemophilus influenzae type B, diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough and measles/mumps/rubella. The deal calls for Brazil to establish local production for Synflorix, a 10-valent pneumococcal non-typeable H. influenzae protein D conjugate vaccine. Two of the serotypes1 and 5are particularly widespread in Brazil. It is the most complex vaccine in the world today in technological terms, in which each of the ten conjugate components involve a complex manufacturing process. The partnership is hoped to extend beyond pneumococcal vaccine to the development of other vaccines, for example, a vaccine against malaria or the development of a new yellow fever vaccine or dengue fever. Brazil currently faces a widespread epidemic of dengue fever, with insect vectors and infections in all of the federation's states. Although GSK will benefit from access to the huge Brazilian market, local scientists anticipate benefits in terms of transfer of technological expertise and knowledge. Technology transfer and use of local expertise in vaccine production is also a focus of the Indian not-for-profit joint venture announced by Wellcome and Merck. Although India currently produces and exports many vaccines, none was developed within the country, except a version of the recombinant hepatitis B vaccine developed by Shantha.
 

Source: Nature Biotechnology, Vol. 27, December 2009