Sanofi Pasteur announces new vaccine discovery alliance

Sanofi Pasteur has announced that it will be entering into a new vaccine discovery collaboration with the charitable organisation the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Under the terms of the new alliance, the organisations will be working together to explore and develop new platforms and methods intended to accelerate vaccine research and development, particularly in areas of global health.

This collaboration has been formed through the Vaccine Discovery Partnership, a newly-created formal mechanism by which the Gates Foundation can directly collaborate with Sanofi Pasteur and other vaccine pharmaceutical companies.

It is hoped that the agreement will help to take the risk out of exploring novel concepts, technologies, platforms and approaches of mutual interest.

Dr John Shiver, senior vice-president of research and development for Sanofi Pasteur, said: "This programme provides a mechanism to pursue research and development of new candidate vaccines for global health in the preclinical and clinical phases up to and including phase IIa clinical trials."

This comes after the firm became the first vaccine company to successfully participate in the Rapid Relative Effectiveness Assessment pilot run by the European Network for Health Technology earlier this year.