BIONNTECH has begun human trials on a vaccine for malaria, a fresh test for the messenger RNA technology that powered the most success
ful immunisations against Covid-19.
The first patient was dosed on December 21, CEO Ugur Sahin said in an interview. The Phase 1 study will enrol 60 patie
nts and use three different doses for a single vaccine candidate, the BioNTech CEO said. The Mainz, Germany-based company plans to evaluate different versions of the shot to see which one works best, Bloomberg reported.
The malaria vaccine is one of many new shots BioNTech is testing on patients as the biotech company uses the proceeds from the Covid-19 vaccine it d
eveloped with Pf
izer to push forward a broad pipeline of experimental drugs. Rival Moderna has also said it will pursue a vaccine against malaria.
Malaria has long been a difficult target since the complexity of the parasites that cause it make it hard to create an effective vaccine. BioNTech’s shot will be designed to target several potential antigens to ‘identify the optimal candidate,’ chief medical officer Ozlem Tureci said in a statement.
The first vaccine for the disease, developed by GSK, prevented only about 40 percent of malaria cases in a large study. A second shot, developed by researchers at the University of Oxford, is being tested now in a large, mult
i-country trial.
The disease killed about 619,000 people last year, mostly young children in Africa, according to the World Health Organisation. BioNTech’s planned vaccine production
site in Kigali, Rwanda will help produce the malaria shot, Sahin said.
