INTERVIEW-Sanofi hopes to market dengue vaccine by 2015
By Nopporn Wong-Anan
SINGAPORE, April 21 (Reuters) - A vaccine to prevent mosquito-borne dengue disease, which puts 2.5 billion people at risk of infection, will be available in the market by 2015, vaccine developer Sanofi Pasteur (SASY.PA) said on Tuesday.
Melanie Saville, Sanofi Pasteur's head of the Clinical Dengue Programme, told Reuters vaccine trials in tropical countries were making progress, and should provide sufficient clinical data for regulatory approvals by 2015.
"Our priority is to license the vaccine in endemic countries, so we are looking at licensing the vaccine in countries in Asia and Latin America," Saville said in an interview after announcing the start of vaccine trials in Singapore and Vietnam. Sanofi Pasteur, the vaccines division of Sanofi-Aventis SA, is expanding its global dengue vaccine study programme in Asia where trials are on in Thailand, the Philippines and Peru.
Saville said developing a vaccine against dengue, the most widespread tropical disease after malaria, was more challenging than other diseases as there were four strains of the virus that could cause the infection.
"It is fair to say some of the vaccines are the easy targets because the technology is relatively easy to produce. Dengue is a more difficult target," she said.
A vaccine for dengue vaccine is technically difficult to make because it is hard to bring up the level of antibodies against all four strains, experts say.
If a dengue survivor is later infected with another strain of dengue, the person is highly likely to develop haemorrhagic dengue fever, which can be deadly.
Of the estimated 230 million people infected annually, two million, mostly children, develop dengue haemorrhagic fever, which is the top cause of hospitalisation in Southeast Asia, she said.
Dengue outbreaks have risen in the Asia-Pacific in the past year, killing three times more people than in recent years, an official at the World Health Organisation said in March.
Last year, 3,255 people died of the disease in the agency's Southeast Asia countries grouping, which includes South Asia and North Korea as well as Indonesia and Thailand.
Sanofi-Aventis Chief Executive Chris Viehbacher told Reuters in March the dengue vaccine had billion-dollar sales potential as drugmakers' traditional model was under threat from the looming loss of exclusivity on some of the industry's biggest sellers. Saville declined to discuss the vaccine's sale potential, but said the vaccine would be in great demand once available.
"It is a bit early to really think about revenue, but it is probably the best way to think about that is in the perspective of the epidemiology of the disease. Indeed almost half of the world population live in areas at risk of dengue infection."
"There is a clear unmet medical need there is no vaccine available. Vaccination is one of the main and most successful way of preventing diseases such as dengue," she said. (Editing by Ee Lyn Tan)
SINGAPORE, April 21 (Reuters) - A vaccine to prevent mosquito-borne dengue disease, which puts 2.5 billion people at risk of infection, will be available in the market by 2015, vaccine developer Sanofi Pasteur (SASY.PA) said on Tuesday.
Melanie Saville, Sanofi Pasteur's head of the Clinical Dengue Programme, told Reuters vaccine trials in tropical countries were making progress, and should provide sufficient clinical data for regulatory approvals by 2015.
"Our priority is to license the vaccine in endemic countries, so we are looking at licensing the vaccine in countries in Asia and Latin America," Saville said in an interview after announcing the start of vaccine trials in Singapore and Vietnam. Sanofi Pasteur, the vaccines division of Sanofi-Aventis SA, is expanding its global dengue vaccine study programme in Asia where trials are on in Thailand, the Philippines and Peru.
Saville said developing a vaccine against dengue, the most widespread tropical disease after malaria, was more challenging than other diseases as there were four strains of the virus that could cause the infection.
"It is fair to say some of the vaccines are the easy targets because the technology is relatively easy to produce. Dengue is a more difficult target," she said.
A vaccine for dengue vaccine is technically difficult to make because it is hard to bring up the level of antibodies against all four strains, experts say.
If a dengue survivor is later infected with another strain of dengue, the person is highly likely to develop haemorrhagic dengue fever, which can be deadly.
Of the estimated 230 million people infected annually, two million, mostly children, develop dengue haemorrhagic fever, which is the top cause of hospitalisation in Southeast Asia, she said.
Dengue outbreaks have risen in the Asia-Pacific in the past year, killing three times more people than in recent years, an official at the World Health Organisation said in March.
Last year, 3,255 people died of the disease in the agency's Southeast Asia countries grouping, which includes South Asia and North Korea as well as Indonesia and Thailand.
Sanofi-Aventis Chief Executive Chris Viehbacher told Reuters in March the dengue vaccine had billion-dollar sales potential as drugmakers' traditional model was under threat from the looming loss of exclusivity on some of the industry's biggest sellers. Saville declined to discuss the vaccine's sale potential, but said the vaccine would be in great demand once available.
"It is a bit early to really think about revenue, but it is probably the best way to think about that is in the perspective of the epidemiology of the disease. Indeed almost half of the world population live in areas at risk of dengue infection."
"There is a clear unmet medical need there is no vaccine available. Vaccination is one of the main and most successful way of preventing diseases such as dengue," she said. (Editing by Ee Lyn Tan)
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