U.S. has awarded millions to find Ebola vaccine

NEW YORK – Over the past decade, the U.S. government has awarded tens of millions of federal dollars to private firms to develop drugs to treat or prevent Ebola.

However, a vaccine for humans remains illusive despite some promising signs.

In 2004, Congress under President Bush passed Project Bioshield, a $5-billion project to purchase and develop vaccines that would be used in the event of a bioterrorist attack.

Last year, Congress passed the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Reauthorization Act, which reauthorized more federal funding for the BioShield Project.

Among the original grantees are firms that received millions of dollars to develop treatment and a vaccine for Ebola.

Apath LLC, a New York-based private technology and virology company, received an 18-month, $1.35 million grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases of the National Institutes of Health for "Therapeutics for an Ebola virus."

"The goal here is to find drugs that inhibit the virus. We're able to identify inhibitors using partial viral genomes that are able to replicate within cells but cannot be transmitted," said Dr. Paul Olivo, Apath's president and chief scientific officer, referring to an Ebola drug.

Another Project Bioshield grantee, Crucel, has worked with government agencies, including the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, to develop an Ebola vaccine.

As WND reported, dozens of experimental drugs that have shown promise in combating Ebola in humans remain in minimum supply because of a regulatory approval process that can drag on for years and cost tens, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars. Earlier this month, top medical experts from around the world convened in Geneva to discuss using experimental and alternative treatments to combat the Ebola outbreak. They approved introducing experimental whole blood therapies and convalescent blood serums to treat Ebola.

Patient felt 'absolutely fine'

In 2008, Crucel secured an additional award from the NIAID for options worth up to $40 million to advance the development of an Ebola vaccine.

The company reported its vaccine has "been shown to completely protect monkeys against the virus with a single dose."

In 2006, the vaccine entered Phase I clinical trials, with a study of two groups of 16 volunteers showing "safety and immunogenicity at the doses evaluated."

So far, it seems the most promising vaccine trials are being conducted by GlaxoSmithKline in conjunction with the National Institute of Health.

The company, with Oxford University, last week administered to volunteers what it said was an experimental Ebola vaccine. The first participant injected told reporters she felt "absolutely fine" after receiving the vaccine currently known as NIAID/GSK.

'Don't get too excited'

Speaking to the Washington Post, Ben Newman, a virologist at the University of Reading, cautioned against getting too excited about the latest vaccination trials, saying previous trials looked promising but ultimately failed.

“There is clearly a need for this vaccine, but what is not clear is whether it will work well enough to protect someone from Ebola," Newman told the Post of the most recent trials.

"This vaccine uses some of the best available technology to give the immune system a good long look at its target – a small but vitally important part of the virus. However, we won't really be able to tell whether the vaccine works until it is tested on the ground in West Africa."

He told the Post that "two trials with HIV vaccines that used very similar vaccine technology have recently failed, despite promising initial results."

With additional research by Brenda J. Elliott.