The R21/Matrix-M malaria vaccine showed 71%-80% efficacy in preventing cases of malaria in a randomised controlled phase 2 trial published at the end of last year. A phase 3 trial is ongoing.
67 (51%) of 132 children who received R21/Matrix-M with low-dose adjuvant, 54 (39%) of 137 children who received R21/Matrix-M with high-dose adjuvant, and 121 (86%) of 140 children who received the rabies vaccine developed clinical malaria by 12 months
(the rabies vaccine was the control)
The next best thing is the RTS,S/AS01 vaccine, which WHO started rolling out in some pilot programs in 2016 after trials showed its reduced hospital admissions from severe malaria by around 30%, less impressive than R21/Matrix-M.
A few days ago, Ghana's food and drugs administration announced that they've approved the R21/Matrix-M for children aged 5 months to 36 months. It seems like there will be more steps before the vaccines actually start rolling out (they might need to wait for WHO approval and/or the results of the phase 3 trial). In any case, very exciting news.
I found out about this because it is on the In the news section of the front page of Wikipedia.
Cautiously optimistic here. It should be noted that since the Phase 2 trial showed efficacy dependent on the amount of Matrix M adjuvant used, the adjuvant providing company, Novavax will need to execute better with its manufacturing partners than it has shown it is capable of. Though this company has historically conducted many clinical trials, it has dropped the ball on execution. It failed a phase 3 RSV trial due to arguably unfit trial endpoints and despite being awarded $1.6 B in Operation Warp Speed money for its COVID vaccine, has drastically underperformed in delivering to all markets, including its committed doses to COVAX due to manufacturing slowness/lack of regulatory capture in the US (I'd say only partly their fault here given FDA slow walking them) and deficiencies in licensing and manufacturing expertise (even when working with Serum Institute of India). They started to cancel manufacturing subcontracts, triggering reneg payment settlement clauses (i.e. $185M to Fujifilm Diosynth, GAVI pulling out of a $700M covid vaccine deal due to failure to deliver in time), and in cases where trials were effective such as its flu candidate which passed phase 3 before the pandemic, their vaccine still has not reached patients commercially (Nanoflu, which showed cross-reactive polyfunctional CD4+ T-cell responses and outperformed Sanofi’s quadrivalent Fluzone in a head to head trial).
Been following Novavax since they're in my backyard in the DC metro area and knew people in their COVID vaccine trial (protein subunit, even slightly outperformed Moderna/Pfizer in some efficacy and side effects metrics.... But very few people ended up getting it compared to Moderna/Pfizer due to lateness to market). Stock went from highs ~$250/share during COVID to now ~$8 arguably due to mismanagement (CEO finally recently stepped down). Would be a pity if the company continues its pattern of misfiring here; hope it doesn't fold, and hopefully if they're just providing matrix M they don't end up being the bottleneck in full manufacturing. Case study in better management/Institutional decision making as an EA cause area in my opinion.
Seems like working at Novavax to improve their implementation could be a super high-value career choice!
Makes me think that a list of "companies that are underrated and critical in important supply chains" could be quite a useful resource for people brainstorming career options.