NEW DELHI: Indian pharmaceutical giant Sun Pharma has partnered with International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB) to develop a dengue vaccine that would be safe, effective and affordable. It didn’t disclose the amount it would invest in this partnership.Dinakar Salunke, Director, ICGEB noted that despite the recent approval of a dengue vaccine and several candidates at advance stage of clinical trials, a safe, affordable and efficacious dengue vaccine still faces major challenges. “Our pre-clinical data is very encouraging and this could be an ideal dengue vaccine candidate for all target populations," he said.“This first step, which is a very major bottleneck, has been resolved with the signing of this agreement and hopefully we will see, in the next year or two, a candidate vaccine emerging,” said Soumya Swaminathan, Director General, Indian Council of Medical Research. “Our decision to partner with ICGEB on dengue vaccine program followed extensive due diligence and expert consultations on existing dengue vaccine programs globally,” he said.Unlike existing dengue vaccines, experts say DSV4 is a tailored recombinant virus-like-particle based vaccine—it doesn’t use a live attenuated virus in its development. This vaccine has already been launched in a few dengue-endemic countries.

Source: Economic Times October 19, 2016 08:24 UTC