In the effort to eradicate tuberculosis as one of the world’s most deadly diseases, novel TB vaccines will be an important part of the solution. There is a pipeline of new TB vaccines that requires a global and comprehensive coordination of efforts with defined stages of development and criteria for progression of individual vaccine candidates.
To address this need, the TB Vaccine Development Pathway was launched at the Ninth EDCTP Forum on 19 September. The Pathway is a newly established tool that provides a structured development path and gating criteria for TB vaccine candidates. It also describes the different functions and capabilities required to advance a candidate TB vaccine to its next stage of development.
The Pathway was developed by experts from TBVI and Aeras, and consolidated with a variety of stakeholders in the field of TB vaccines. It was developed on behalf of the Global TB Vaccine Partnership (GTBVP), an alliance of organisations that aim at making novel TB vaccines a reality, with funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
TBVI and Aeras published a first generic set of stage gate criteria for the development of TB vaccines in 2012 https://www.tuberculosisjournal.com/article/S1472-9792(12)70009-4/pdf. The new web-based TB Vaccine Development Pathway is an update and expansion of the published criteria and stages, and is now being made available to the entire TB vaccine community on the Web. The criteria will continue to evolve over time and will incorporate scientific and technical progress and input from users.
Source: TBVI