Summary
"Over the past year, excitement within the industry has been growing as companies start to recognize the potential of vaccines.New i nsights into immunobiology and delivery systems may allow the development of better vaccines and vaccines for a wider range of diseases than was previously possible. The market looks set to explode over the next 5-10 years as a raft of new products based on these new technologies are developed and launched." Dr Sara Sleigh
Vaccination is recognized as a cost-effective medical strategy. Vaccines, alongside antibiotics and improved hygiene standards, have been responsible for a steady decrease in morbidity and mortality from infectious diseases worldwide since their introduction early in the 20th century. Currently available vaccines prevent up to 3 million deaths each year and 750,000 children avoid serious disability. Despite this high level of success, almost 7 million children under 5 years old still die each year from infections.
Conventional vaccines have been based on live attenuated, or killed, viruses or bacteria, or recombinant proteins from these organisms. The design of live attenuated vaccines depended to some extent on serendipity and resulted in low success rates; both live attenuated and
killed vaccines require handling live pathogens and are associated with safety problems. Vaccines based on recombinant protein antigens are not highly immunogenic, proteins can be difficult to manufacture and may have stability issues.
Recent scientific advances have increased our understanding of immunobiology and now allow the more rational design of vaccines. These advances include new delivery technologies that will improve the safety and immunogenicity of traditional vaccines as well as introducing entirely new methods of vaccine delivery such as DNA vaccines. It is largely through the development of new delivery methods that companies are now aiming to tackle infectious diseases that have evaded vaccine manufacture in the past, develop vaccines for potential diseases related to bioterrorism and launch the new category of therapeutic vaccines.
Vaccines are a vibrant area of pharmaceutical development. The activity in the marketplace has grown steadily over the past few years and looks set to continue and increase in the near future. This report describes the role of new delivery technologies in this rapidly growing field.
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