GSK transfers technology license for Ebola vaccines to Sabin Vaccine Institute

The Sabin Vaccine Institute and GSK announced this week exclusive agreements for Sabin to advance the development of three GSK candidate vaccines against Ebola Zaire, Ebola Sudan, and the Marburg virus.

“These agreements with the Sabin Vaccine Institute are an important next step in the fight against Ebola and Marburg viruses,” Thomas Breuer, chief medical officer of GSK Vaccines, said. “Enabling Sabin to build on the scientific progress GSK has delivered up to Phase II increases the likelihood these candidate vaccines may help prevent potential future outbreaks and exemplifies GSK’s approach to global health vaccines which supports partners in taking forward our innovations in a sustainable way.”

By licensing previously developed technology from GSK, Sabin hopes to build upon them in a separate Research Collaboration Agreement with the Vaccine Research Center (VRC) at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). The vaccines have previously shown strong safety profiles and the ability to induce immune responses in patients. They were tested on more than 5,000 adults and 600 children across 13 clinical trials.

All candidate vaccines are based on GSK’s ChAd3 platform.

“Thanks to GSK’s longstanding engagement in global health, as well as its scientific expertise, the ChAd3 vaccine program is well-positioned to be an effective weapon in the global community’s arsenal against Ebola,” Sabin CEO Amy Finan said. “Sabin appreciates GSK’s years of work to advance the ChAd3 Ebola program and the productive partnership the two organizations have established. Sabin plans to continue the development and seek regulatory approval of Ebola and Marburg vaccines with our shared goal of making them available to the millions of people potentially at risk.”