Zika vaccine: France's Sanofi and U.S. Army join forces

French drug company Sanofi said
it had struck a research deal with
the U.S. Army to speed up the development of a
vaccine against the mosquito-borne Zika virus.
Sanofi is the only major drug company working on a
vaccine against Zika, which has been linked to birth
defects and neurological disorders.
Katie Ascough spoke with John Heinrichs,
Associate Vice President at Sanofi Pasteur, to get
the latest details on the development of this
important new vaccine.

“The Zika virus…was identified in 1947 in Africa and
for many decades circulated throughout Africa
causing only very mild disease. But in the last
several years the virus [has] spread out of Africa…”
When asked why Zika has only recently been such a
widespread problem, Dr. Heinrichs admitted: “We
really don’t know is the short answer to that”. He
then explained how industrialisation in regions of
Africa has led to a closer proximity of humans with
the traditional host of the Zika virus, a type of
monkey, and how that may have led to the Zika
epidemic.
As for prevention of infection and spreading of Zika,
Dr. Heinrichs logically recommends avoiding the
mosquito bite in the first place. Recommended are
long-sleeve clothing and insect repellent.
Concerning the progress of Sanofi in finding a
vaccine for Zika, Dr. Heinrichs says: “We believe
that the first vaccines…will enter into clinical studies
toward the later part of this year…and we expect to
see some early results from those trials very early in
2017 but…it will be some time before we have a
vaccine that has demonstrated efficacy and is
actually rolled out and available to the population
that needs it in those regions.”
Commenting on what can be hoped for from the
recent research and development agreement of
Sanofi Pasteur with the U.S. Army, Dr. Heinrichs
said: “We entered into this partnership because we
believe that their vaccine is a very rapid approach
[and has worked in the past]…We bring into that
collaboration the ability to manufacture the vaccine
in scale and a lot of expertise in developing
vaccines and formulation and delivery of those
vaccines. So because of that partnership we’re very
able to quickly respond and to bring that vaccine
into larger clinical studies…
Because we have licensed recently a Dengue
vaccine in the same regions of the world where Zika
is causing epidemic currently, we have the
connections, the clinical experience, [and] access to
the ministries of health in countries such as Brazil.”
Responding to a question about how Zika may
affect the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio, Dr. Heinrichs
replied: “Clearly it’s a concern in Brazil and
everyone has to make that decision based on their
own status in life and how they perceive the risk.
How it will affect the Olympics is really beyond my
expertise.”
With the increasing hype around antibiotic
resistance and the emergence of an E.Coli superbug
in the U.S., Katie asked Dr. Heinrichs if viral
resistance to vaccines was something to be worried
about. Dr Heinrichs reassured: “Currently there only
appears to be a single serotype of Zika virus. That
means that a vaccine developed for Zika should be
able to neutralize or protect against all the strains
that are circulating. [That is, Zika should not like be
as difficult as, for example, the rapidly mutating HIV
virus].”
To conclude the interview, Dr. Heinrichs stated:
“I’m very optimistic that a vaccine developed for
Zika will be highly effective and will be able to
protect throughout the world.”