Due to production issues and rehabilitation of the BCG production line at Statens Serum Institut (SSI), the SSI’s BCG vaccine against tuberculosis has been on back order for a substantial period of time, and the current outlook is that the SSI will remain unable to provide the vaccine at least until the end of 2016. Furthermore, there is a general lack of BCG vaccine on the world market, including in countries which have included the vaccine into their childhood vaccination programme.

Statens Serum Institut (SSI) and Aeras today announced the initiation of a Phase I/IIa clinical trial for a candidate tuberculosis (TB) vaccine designed to protect people, especially those latently infected with TB, from developing active TB disease.