GlaxoSmithKline and European consortium to accelerate Ebola vaccine development

GlaxoSmithKline has announced the formation of a new European consortium that will support its efforts to develop a new vaccine for Ebola.

The company will ally with research partners from the University of Oxford, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois in Lausanne and the Bernhard-Nocht Institute to accelerate the development of the vaccine, which it created alongside the US National Institutes of Health.

An ongoing trial of an Ebola candidate vaccine is already being carried out by the consortium in 120 healthy adult volunteers in Lausanne, Switzerland. If successful, this will be followed by larger phase II trials in Africa as early as January 2015.

The consortium is backed by funding of 15.1 million euros (11.9 million pounds) from the European Commission Directorate General for Research and Innovation, plus an additional 1.4 million euros from the Swiss government.

Dr Moncef Slaoui, chairman of GlaxoSmithKline Vaccines, said: "We welcome the generous support from the European Commission and appreciate how quickly they have worked to secure the research grant for our work."

GlaxoSmithKline's vaccine is being trialled in the US, UK and Mali, with thousands of frontline healthcare workers in Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia to be vaccinated in further trials planned for next year.