Vaccine maker BioNTech to use mRNA tech to target malaria

Vaccine maker BioNTech to use mRNA tech to target malaria

SeattlePI.com

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BERLIN (AP) — Pharmaceutical company BioNTech said Monday that it wants to use the mRNA technology behind its coronavirus vaccine to target malaria.

The Germany-based company, which developed the first widely approved coronavirus shot together with U.S. partner Pfizer, aims to begin clinical trials for a “safe and highly effective malaria vaccine” by the end of next year.

“We are already working on HIV and and tuberculosis, and malaria is the third big indication (disease) with a high unmet medical need,” BioNTech's chief executive, Ugur Sahin, told The Associated Press. “It has an incredible high number of people being infected every year, a high number of patients dying, a particularly severe disease and high mortality in small children.”

According to the World Health Organization, there were about 229 million cases of malaria worldwide in 2019. The global body estimates that 409,000 people died from malaria that year, with children under the age of 5 accounting for 67% of deaths.

Africa has by far the highest burden of the mosquito-borne disease worldwide, WHO says.

Sahin acknowledged that the effort is at a very early stage and there's no guarantee of success. But he said the company believes it’s “the perfect time to address this challenge” because of the insights it has gained from developing an mRNA vaccine against the coronavirus and a growing understanding of how malaria works.

Experts say developing a vaccine to prime the immune system against malaria will be tricky, however.

“The genome of Plasmodium, the parasite that causes malaria, is more complex than viruses,” said Prakash Srinivasan, an assistant professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

A malaria vaccine made by drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline already being trialed in three African...

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