By Ben Hirschler
LONDON, Nov 6 (Reuters) - The Europe Union and drugmakerspledged on Thursday to invest 280 million euros ($350 million)into Ebola research, with the lion's share going to fast-trackthe testing and manufacture of potential vaccines.
The funding will go to projects backed by the InnovativeMedicines Initiative (IMI), a public-private scheme jointly paidfor by the European Commission and the pharmaceuticals industry.
Reuters reported on Oct. 22 that an IMI investment of around200 million euros was pending. Since then there have beenfurther discussions about the resources needed for variousprojects and the amount has been increased.
The final document setting out the plans commits theEuropean Commission to giving up to 140 million euros, withcompanies providing an equivalent amount in staff time, goodsand services.
"The EU is determined to help find a solution to Ebola. Weare putting our money where our mouth is and boosting EUresearch on Ebola with an additional 280 million euros," saidCarlos Moedas, European Commissioner for research.
The move shows how momentum is building to get medicalinterventions, especially vaccines, to West Africa as soon aspossible to try to control the world's worst Ebola outbreak,which has killed nearly 5,000 people, according to officialdata. Many experts believe the true death toll is a lot higher.
With a total budget of 3.3 billion euros for the period 2014to 2024, Europe's IMI scheme is the world's biggestpublic-private-partnership in the life sciences arena.
It was launched in 2008 and has 46 ongoing projects, some ofwhich are focused on specific health issues such as Alzheimer'sdisease, cancer and obesity. Others involve work on broaderchallenges in drug development.
In the case of Ebola, five urgent projects have beenidentified involving the three stages of vaccine clinicaltrials; vaccine manufacturing; vaccine transport and storage;regimens for vaccination deployment; and rapid diagnostic tests.
The aim is to head off some of the technical obstacles that public health officials, governments and drugmakers aregrappling with as they race to develop the world's first Ebolavaccines in record time.
The challenges include finding sufficient vaccinemanufacturing and filling capacity, getting accelerated clinicaltrial results, winning rapid regulatory approvals and building asupply chain in Africa for products that must be stored atultra-low temperatures.
Two leading vaccine candidates from GlaxoSmithKline and NewLink Genetics are already in human safetytrials, and another five should begin testing in the firstquarter of next year. One from Johnson & Johnson willstart trials in January.
The three leading companies hope to make millions of dosesover the course of 2015. (Editing by Kate Kelland)
Glaxosmithkline (GSK)