Sun Pharma To Jointly Develop Second Dengue Vaccine

Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. will collaborate with the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB) to develop a new dengue vaccine.

The new vaccine will be preventive in nature and will be administered to infection-free people as a precaution against the disease. ICGEB had conducted research on the vaccine for more than seven years, and following the collaboration, all further research on it will be funded by Sun Pharma.

Sun Pharma now owns exclusive rights and licenses for this vaccine’s development and commercialisation. In exchange, ICGEB will receive pre-defined royalty and milestone payments.

’We are not taking this into the clinical stage of development. We are completing the toxicology study. Then from phase 1 it goes to phase 3 before the product comes to the market,” Kirti Ganorkar, Sun Pharma’s executive vice-president and head of global business development told BloombergQuint. He did not give a definite timeline on when the product will be out in the market.

Ganorkar said both sides will form a joint development committee which will sit and discuss various issues, including its commercial launch.

This is the second time both groups have partnered to tackle dengue. In May 2016, they collaborated to develop a dengue treatment drug called ‘Cipa’. “Work is on track for that vaccine,” Kirti said.

Dengue has been public health challenge across the world as it has no available antiviral, and no treatment method other than supportive clinical care. The development of vaccine against dengue poses major challenges because immune responses to the medication may lead to multiplication of the virus instead of neutralising them, enhancing the disease.