Yellow Fever

Meridian Medical’s DuoDote will be stockpiled as part of the Strategic National Stockpile’s (SNS) CHEMPACK programme. Image credit: Lucky-photographer via Shutterstock. Kindeva Drug Delivery division Meridian Medical Technologies has won a new contract worth up to $129m from the US Government for the supply of its DuoDote chemical nerve agent antidote autoinjectors to the Strategic National Stockpile (SNS). Managed by the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response (ASPR) within the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the SNS contains medicines and devices for lifesaving care, which are intended for use as stopgap buffers when the immediate supply of such materials may not be available or sufficient. The DuoDote dual-chamber autoinjector contains atropine and pralidoxime chloride and was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2006. It is indicated for the treatment of poisoning from organophosphorus nerve agents and organophosphorus insecticides. Perhaps the nerve agent most well-known to the general public, sarin has been in use since World War II and became infamous in more recent times for its 2013 use on civilians in Syria during the Bashar al-Assad regime. The DuoDote autoinjectors will be manufactured at Kindeva Drug Delivery’s facility in St Louis, Missouri. They will then be stockpiled and available for rapid deployment as part of the SNS CHEMPACK programme. SNS CHEMPACK is an ASPR initiative in which containers of nerve agent antidotes are placed in secure locations around the US to enable rapid response to chemical incidents. Kindeva CEO Milton Boyer commented: “As a trusted partner to the SNS, this contract underscores the ongoing importance of maintaining readiness against potential threats. “Our long-standing partnership with the SNS reflects our commitment to national preparedness and our ability to deliver crucial medical countermeasures when they are needed most. With our extensive experience in this space, we are proud to continue supporting the US Government’s efforts to protect public health and safety.” Kindeva recently partnered with Emervax to co-develop a vaccine delivery solution for viruses including mpox and yellow fever. Kindeva Drug Delivery was formerly known as 3M Drug Delivery Systems and rebranded itself in 2020, following its acquisition by Altaris Capital Partners in a deal valued at $650m.

LEXINGTON, Ky., Dec. 7, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has just announced MosquitoMate as its first awardee in a new effort to fight the growing crisis of mosquito transmitted diseases. To help address the growing problem, in 2022 Congress mandated that the EPA create the Vector Expedited Review Voucher (VERV) program, which promotes new pesticidal measures against important mosquitoes. The VERV program is modeled after the successful Tropical Disease Priority Review Voucher Program that was legislated in 2007 at the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). VERV is intended to encourage the development of novel products against selected diseases by rewarding innovative companies with a 'priority review voucher' that can expedite registration of a second product. Speeding a second product to market generates value for the manufacturer, which offsets the high development costs that are typical in registering public health products. In the same way, the EPA's VERV program stimulates the development of innovative public health pesticides to combat mosquito-related diseases. The voucher can either be used by the awarded company directly, or it can be sold to a different company, providing a financial incentive to innovate within neglected areas. Continue Reading The MosquitoMate pesticide is innovative in multiple ways: it is a new and effective active ingredient and a novel delivery method. MosquitoMate makes and releases male mosquitoes that are infected with the Wolbachia bacterium. The approach does not use genetic modification and is listed as an organic product. "The male mosquitoes are 'self-delivering' and do not bite or transmit disease-causing pathogens," describes Dr. Stephen Dobson, who is the MosquitoMate founder and CEO. Only female mosquitoes bite, and the Wolbachia-infected males cause a form of sterility known as 'Cytoplasmic Incompatibility' (CI). Those female mosquitoes that mate with the Wolbachia-infected males lay eggs that do not hatch, causing the mosquito population to decline without the need to use harsh chemicals. "It's a species-specific method," says Dobson, "because the male mosquitoes only mate with females of the same species." This specificity and chemical avoidance can be particularly important in environmentally sensitive areas, such as wetlands, where concern exists that a chemical might harm non-target and endangered animals, including beneficial insects like bees and butterflies. The US EPA has announced MosquitoMate as its first awardee in a new effort to fight mosquito transmitted diseases. Post this MosquitoMate began working with the EPA years before the VERV was proposed. "We are thrilled that the WB1 male mosquitoes are being recognized by the EPA's new VERV program," exclaims Dobson. The WB1 male mosquito is effective against the Aedes aegypti mosquito (commonly known as the Yellow Fever mosquito), which occurs around the world and is responsible for transmission of dengue, Zika, chikungunya and yellow fever pathogens. This mosquito prefers to feed on people, and it is perfectly adapted to live and breed in the communities that humans create. One published study from California shows the reduction of an Ae. aegypti population by more than 95% following the release of WB1 males. With the EPA's registration, MosquitoMate can now begin to offer WB1 males nationally. "The problem is growing," describes Dobson, "and the combination of climate change and increasing globalization of goods and human travel is making matters worse, both inside the USA and beyond." As an example, in 2023 the USA reported cases of local malaria transmission for the first time in two decades. This follows cases of local US transmission of the chikungunya and Zika viruses by mosquitoes in 2014 and 2016, respectively. "Exotic diseases that were 'over there,' are now occurring right here at home," says Dobson. Also contributing to the problem is the current lack of effective pesticides. "We have only a few tools that we can use in our fight against mosquitoes," he says. The number of effective insecticides has been declining at an alarming rate, as more mosquitoes develop resistance to existing insecticides. "The Ae. aegypti mosquito is an invasive species in the USA," says Dobson. "It was accidentally introduced from Africa during early trade by European colonists of North America." The MosquitoMate WB1 method is a species-specific approach. There are more than 3,500 species of mosquitoes on the planet, and most of them do not bite people or cause disease. "We're not trying to eliminate all mosquitoes," says Dobson, "many of which are important to the local ecosystem." The VERV program was championed by a consortium that includes Duke University's Global Health Institute and the Innovative Vector Control Consortium (IVCC) program. Contact: [email protected] SOURCE MosquitoMate, Inc WANT YOUR COMPANY'S NEWS FEATURED ON PRNEWSWIRE.COM? 440k+ Newsrooms & Influencers 9k+ Digital Media Outlets 270k+ Journalists Opted In GET STARTED

Recipients of the funding include Albert Einstein College of Medicine, the Research Triangle Institute in North Carolina, Vanderbilt University Medical Center and Washington University in St. Louis, among others. With COVID-19 still spreading and mpox emerging as a public health emergency of international concern, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is upping preparations for future pandemics.The Research and Development of Vaccines and Monoclonal Antibodies for Pandemic Preparedness network (ReVAMPP) will research pathogens that currently lack effective treatments and vaccines, with the NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) committing up to $100 million per year to the effort so long as funds are available, the agency announced Sept. 13.“In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and ongoing outbreaks of emerging infectious diseases, the need for robust pandemic preparedness is evident,” NIAID Director Jeanne M. Marrazzo, M.D., said in the release. “The ReVAMPP network will enable researchers to fill key knowledge gaps and identify strategies to develop safe and effective medical countermeasures for targeted virus families before the need becomes critical.” The U.S. has long faced criticism over its pandemic preparedness, both before, during and after COVID-19’s first appearance and spread.ReVAMPP will focus on virus families with known troublemakers, the NIH said, including the families that include dengue and yellow fever, measles, polio and chikungunya. The agency says that focusing on representative pathogens known to cause human disease will enable knowledge to be built that can be transferred to related pathogens. Developing new antibodies and vaccines for these diseases, the agency said in the release, will allow the global health community to respond quickly if a new pandemic threat spawns.Recipients of the funding include the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, the Research Triangle Institute in North Carolina, the Vanderbilt University Medical Center and Washington University in St. Louis, among others.Albert Einstein’s project is called Prepositioning Optimized Strategies for Vaccines and Immunotherapeutics against Diverse Emerging Infectious Threats (PROVIDENT), and the college will receive $70 million over five years from NIAID, according to a Sept. 13 release. HDT Bio, a biotech focused on RNA vaccines, announced Sept. 17 that it will be joining Albert Einstein’s project, netting $2 million per year to create “road maps” for new RNA-based vaccines of potential pandemic pathogens. "It is currently unknown if the state-of-the-art approaches used to design vaccine antigens for traditional vaccine technologies can simply be co-opted for use in RNA vaccine technologies," Jesse Erasmus, Ph.D., director of virology at HDT Bio, said in the company’s release. "HDT Bio will address this unknown while generating prototype vaccine candidates for 8 different viruses across 3 virus families of pandemic potential, collaborating with other member institutions of PROVIDENT.”HDT Bio is headquartered in Seattle and has numerous vaccines for viral diseases in its pipeline, including for COVID-19, Crimean–Congo hemorrhagic fever and Nipah virus.The Research Triangle Institute will serve the ReVAMPP network as a centralized Coordination and Data Sharing Center, the NIH said in its release.