Sanaria receives 2014 Vaccine Industry Excellence Award for "Best Prophylactic Vaccine"

Apr 3 2014

Sanaria received the 2014 Vaccine Industry Excellence Award for the "Best Prophylactic Vaccine" at a ceremony held March 25 in Washington DC during the 14th World Vaccine Congress. Vaccines from Sanofi Pasteur, GSK, and Novartis were among the 6 finalists competing with Sanaria. The awardee, Sanaria® PfSPZ Vaccine, demonstrated complete protection against malaria in all volunteers (6/6) who received high dose immunizations in a trial at the Vaccine Research Center (VRC), National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), NIH. The clinical trial results were published online in Science magazine in August 2013. Additional safety, efficacy and regimen refinement studies are underway led by teams from the VRC, NIAID, NIH and the University of Maryland School of Medicine in the US, and from the University of Bamako and the Laboratory of Malaria Immunology and Vaccinology (LMIV), NIAID, in Mali. Trials of PfSPZ Vaccine are also planned to begin in the next few months at the Ifakara Health Institute, Tanzania, the Naval Medical Research Center and Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, USA, Ministry of Health, Equatorial Guinea, and the University of Tübingen, Germany. Sanaria has pioneered the manufacture, storage, shipping, and administration of Plasmodium falciparum sporozoite stage malaria parasites as vaccines. With collaborating partners in the US, Europe, and Africa, Sanaria is optimizing vaccine dosage regimens and performance characteristics and establishing operational systems for mass administration of PfSPZ Vaccine to be used in malaria elimination campaigns.

"We are extremely honored by this award, which represents the recognition of our industry peers," said Stephen L. Hoffman, MD, President and founder of Sanaria, who was also among the 6 finalists for this year's ViE "Best Biotech CEO" award. Ogobara Doumbo, MD, PhD, Director of the Malaria Research and Training Centre of the University of Bamako, Mali, said, "This announcement is a great boost for our staff and volunteers, collaborating with LMIV, NIAID and Sanaria to test the PfSPZ Vaccine in the field here in Mali. The months ahead are going to be very exciting for us, and hopefully for everyone working in malaria." Salim Abdulla, MD, PhD, Director of the Ifakara Health Institute, Tanzania, the first organization in Africa to conduct clinical trials of a PfSPZ product, and the site of an upcoming trial of PfSPZ Vaccine, said, "This industry recognition communicates to all of our colleagues in Tanzania why we and our colleagues and supporters at the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute have committed so much of our resources and time to assessing PfSPZ Vaccine, and our vision to use it as a tool to eliminate P. falciparum malaria."

The Vaccine Industry Excellence Awards honor the global vaccine industry's outstanding achievements. Experts drawn from the pharmaceutical and biotech industries, pharmaceutical consultants, public health organizations, NGOs, and academic and research institutions judge the award nominees. These experts provide unprecedented combined knowledge of the status of contemporary vaccine development efforts.