IAVI

We’re pleased to welcome Kara Bickham to the IAVI family today as our new Chief Development Officer! In this newly created role, Kara will oversee the full range of IAVI’s late-stage product development efforts needed to bring our vaccines and monoclonal antibody products to regulatory approval, recommendation, and introduction. Her arrival aligns with a pivotal point for IAVI and our partners as we prepare to launch two critical trials in Western and Southern Africa — an efficacy trial for the #TBvaccine candidate #MTBVAC, and a Phase 2b trial to prepare for an efficacy study of IAVI’s #Lassa virus vaccine candidate, which is currently in Phase 2 trials in West Africa. Kara comes to us from Pfizer, where she was Vice President of Vaccine Clinical Research and Development. There she oversaw the Prevnar pneumococcal vaccine portfolio and served as franchise lead for the GBS6 vaccine, a six-valent Group B streptococcal vaccine being developed for low- and middle-income countries in partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. She has also held leadership roles with Affinivax Inc. and Merck Vaccines. Please join us in welcoming Kara to the organization! #newhire #leadership #vaccinedevelopment

We're #hiring a new Manager, Regulatory Affairs in City of Cape Town, Western Cape. Apply today or share this post with your network.

We're #hiring a new Manager, Clinical Program Quality in City of Cape Town, Western Cape. Apply today or share this post with your network.

🔔💉 The first-ever Phase 2 Lassa vaccine clinical trial is now fully active! We are pleased to share that sites in Ghana, Liberia, and Nigeria are all vaccinating volunteers in the IAVI C105 clinical trial of our Lassa fever vaccine candidate. No vaccines are currently available for Lassa – a deadly hemorrhagic fever common to West Africa. This milestone comes at a critical time. Nigeria is facing an outbreak, and a case was reported in France earlier this year. Climate change and population growth will exacerbate the spread of Lassa fever, which is featured in the World Health Organization's R&D Blueprint for its potential to cause an outbreak of international concern. Read the full story: https://lnkd.in/gaRMDQ6y HJF Medical Research International | CEPI (Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations) #globalhealth #vaccineswork #outsmartepidemics #lassafever

A Lassa fever vaccine is urgently needed to save thousands of lives: https://lnkd.in/g4jBcYiv Deploying a safe and effective Lassa vaccine across 15 countries of continental West Africa could save nearly 3,300 lives over 10 years and avert up to $128 million in societal costs, new research by modelling experts shows. Being vaccinated against Lassa fever—a viral disease spread by rodents and infected food—would prevent millions of people from falling sick with the disease and facing prohibitive treatment costs that could otherwise push them below the poverty line, according to findings of the study by the University of Oxford Population Health, HERC, University of Liverpool and the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine The publication in Nature Portfolio comes as participants in Ghana, Nigeria and Liberia received IAVI's Lassa fever vaccine candidate as part of the first-ever Phase 2 Lassa vaccine clinical trial, funded by CEPI: https://lnkd.in/gaRMDQ6y Find out more about the impact of a Lassa fever vaccine on CEPI's website ⬇️

We’re pleased to introduce the Community Engagement Committee for the 7th #GlobForumTBVax. For the first time in the history of the Global Forum, we’re proud to be working with 10 expert advocates and activists to inform community engagement and advocacy efforts for the #7GFTBV. Committee members will be speaking at sessions throughout the Forum and leading the drafting of the official Community Declaration. ▪️ Patrick P. Agbassi, Global TB CAB | Envopharm, Côte d'Ivoire ▪️ Ezio Távora, Rede-TB, Brazil ▪️ Keyuri Arvind Bhanushali, Survivors Against TB, India ▪️ Rosa Herrera, Global Tuberculosis Community Advisory Board | Universidad Autónoma de Durango, Campus Mexicali, Mexico ▪️ Peter Owiti, GAVI CSO Steering Committee, Kenya ▪️ Ani Herna Sari, Rekat Peduli, Indonesia ▪️ Paulina Siniatkina, TBpeople, Netherlands ▪️ Jackie Cuen, We Are TB, USA ▪️ Vanessa Mwebaza Muwanga, Working Group on New TB Vaccines | South Africa TB Vaccine Initiative, South Africa ▪️ Shaun Palmer, IAVI | TB Vaccine Advocacy Roadmap (TB Vax ARM), Netherlands 🤝 Click the link to meet them: bit.ly/7GFTBVceCom Stop TB Partnership | REDE-TB - Rede Brasileira de Pesquisas em Tuberculose

The Lancet Microbe recently published an update on the current #Lassafever outbreak in Nigeria. Here are the facts: ◾ The NCDC has reported 928 confirmed cases and 162 associated deaths as of June 30. ◾ The number of suspected cases has increased compared to the same period last year. Although no vaccine is currently available to manage the outbreak, a Phase 2 clinical trial is underway in Nigeria for IAVI's Lassa fever vaccine candidate. The candidate is built on the same rVSV vaccine vector technology as a licensed Ebola vaccine. Our Head of EIDs, Swati Gupta, emphasizes the promise of this technology – which is used across all IAVI EID vaccines. 📢 “The good thing about this particular technology and platform is that it works very quickly. We know that the immunity develops quite rapidly, and we also know that it only requires one dose..." Read the full article to hear from Gupta and Abdulwasiu Bolaji Tiamiyu, the principal investigator of the trial in Nigeria: https://lnkd.in/en9qp7pZ HJF Medical Research International | CEPI (Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations)

We're #hiring a new Medical Director, Clinical Development in Nairobi County. Apply today or share this post with your network.

IAVI's Yvonne Wangũi Machira, director of socio-behavioral research, spoke to Devex about the continued need for engagement with communities during the rollout of HIV prevention tools. “But when oral PrEP rolled out in Kenya and many other African countries, the messaging was that it’s targeting certain key populations, targeting gay men, targeting sex workers. And there’s already so much stigma around those populations,” Machira said. “So what happened is that we’ve had a black market in Nairobi evolve around oral PrEP, where people actually buy the oral PrEP instead of accessing it for free in a public health facility because there’s less stigma, less questions asked.” The UPTAKE study (www.uptakestudy.org), led by IAVI and our partners, aims to better understand these gaps. Findings presented at #AIDS2024 revealed that, although 61% of adolescent girls and young women were aware of oral PrEP, only 12% were using it. 🔍 How can researchers and policymakers overcome this hesitancy? Read the article: https://lnkd.in/d_iZKN6f

⏰10 weeks to go!⏰ With the World Vaccine Congress slowly approaching in 10 weeks, here are 10 speakers you can't miss! 🔹Dr Thomas Waite, Deputy Chief Medical Officer, UK Department of Health and Social Care 🔹Dr Chandresh Harjivan, Special Assistant to the President, Domestic Preparedness and Response to Biological Threats, The White House Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy, Executive Office of the President 🔹Prof Petro Terblanche, CEO, Afrigen Biologics (Pty) Ltd 🔹Prof Isabel Oliver, Chief Scientific Advisor Transition Lead, UK Health Security Agency 🔹Prof Jeffrey William Almond, FMedSci. Visiting Professor of Microbiology, University of Oxford 🔹Prof Teresa Lambe, Calleva Head Of Vaccine Immunology, University of Oxford 🔹Ab Osterhaus, Director, Research Centre for Emerging Infections & Zoonoses, University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover 🔹Dr Nicolas Collin, Co-Founder & CEO, Vaccine Formulation Institute 🔹Dr Swati Gupta, Vice President, Head of Emerging Infectious Diseases and Scientific Strategy, IAVI 🔹Dr Dan Wolfe, Branch Chief, CBRN Vaccines, Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) For speaking opportunities, apply here! https://buff.ly/46VZhqS or get in touch with Anna Louise Hindley-Skelt ([email protected])💫 Join us for the largest and most established European meeting on vaccine R&D! Register now, only from €495 https://buff.ly/46ZeNlO 📆Pre-Congress Workshops | 28 October 2024 📍Catalonia Barcelona Plaza 📆Main Congress | 29 – 31 October 2024 📍Fira de Barcelona Montjuic #WVCEU #VaccineDevelopment #VaccineInnovation #HealthcareInnovation #Vaccines