The Vaccine Group (TVG), Plymouth, England is delighted to announce that they have been awarded funding from the UK’s Bacterial Vaccines Network (BactiVac) to further develop their vaccine platform towards application in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). This research is being supported by a grant of £50,000 via BactiVac’s Catalyst Funding (Round 8).
TVG’s bovine herpesvirus vector that forms the basis of the platform is a harmless virus which can generate vaccine proteins in the inoculated animals from incorporated genes that induce an immune response against the target disease.
This further innovation of the vaccine platform system aims to achieve the benefits of mRNA vaccines, but without their high costs of production, or transportation and administration issues. This will allow for cheaper production and dose sparing, allowing affordability of vaccines in LMICs.
The vaccine system is first being modelled using Streptococcus suis (S. suis), a bacterial infection that causes serious, and often fatal, disease in pigs. S. suis is also a zoonotic pathogen that can infect humans, and has caused severe outbreaks of disease in Asia. Vaccines against bacteria such as S. suis also have the ability to drastically lower antibiotic use in animals and therefore the reduce the likelihood of antimicrobial resistance. This advanced platform will be used across the whole range of TVG’s vaccine products, many of which are aimed at LMICs for use in several livestock species. These include vaccines targeting African swine fever (ASF) and porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS), both major threats to the global pig industry.
TVG’s CSO Prof. Michael Jarvis said: “The value of science has to be in its ability to help everyone. We really appreciate BactiVac’s support in developing our vaccine platform to tackle infectious disease not just in wealthy countries but across the world.”
The project will also establish a S. suis advisory committee which allows for TVG to ensure that its enhanced S. suis vaccine is suitable for use in both the UK and globally, aligning with multiple farming practices to ensure end-user uptake. This committee includes members from the University of Plymouth, the University of Cambridge, Oxford University Clinical Research Unit (OUCRU) in Vietnam, and the Shanghai Veterinary Research Institute (SHVRI) in China.
Successful production of this new wave of vaccine candidates will further demonstrate the affordability of the herpesvirus vaccine vector platform that TVG employs, whilst expanding TVG’s end-user range significantly into LMICs.
This work was funded by the Medical Research Council and the International Science Partnerships Fund. Additional support was provided by The Department of Health and Social Care as part of the Global AMR Innovation Fund (GAMRIF), a UK aid programme that supports early-stage innovative research in underfunded areas of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) research and development for the benefit of those in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), who bear the greatest burden of AMR. The views expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the UK Department of Health and Social Care.