First Anti-Malaria Vaccine Developed by GSK

GSK (GlaxoSmithKline), the U.K. drug manufacturer, is seeking regulatory approval for its anti-malaria vaccine. The drug has been successful in reducing the number of malaria cases in African children in its trial period.

This vaccine, RTS,S, produced by GSK is getting $200 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and is supported by the non-profit MVI (Path Malaria Vaccine Initiative). It took about 30 years to develop this vaccine.

This drug is expected to play a crucial role in terminating malaria and saving numerous lives all over the world. The medicine reduced the number of malaria cases in African children by half and brought it down by 25 percent among infants after the trials.

"In Africa we experience nearly 600,000 deaths annually from malaria, mainly children under five years of age," Halidou Tinto, principal investigator from the Nanoro, Burkina Faso trial site and chair of the Clinical Trials Partnership Committee (CTPC), which oversees the RTS,S Phase III program, said in a news release.

The trial was conducted on 15,500 children in seven countries,  one of the biggest trials in Africa. A follow-up of 18 months took place after vaccinating a thousand children. A reduction of 27 percent in the cases of clinical malaria was observed among infants. "Many millions of malaria cases fill the wards of our hospitals. Progress is being made with bed nets and other measures, but we need more tools to battle this terrible disease, " Tinto said.

GSK aims at submitting its regulatory application to the EMA(European Medicines Agency) by 2014. The WHO (World Health Organization) will recommend a policy for the RTS,S vaccine after it gets approval from the EMA.