ACE vaccine development wins charitable funding

Partnership agreed

ACE BioSciences of Copenhagen has announced a partnership with the international healthcare charity PATH to advance the development of a vaccine against enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC), one of the leading bacterial causes of diarrhoea.  PATH will fund ACE to complete Phase I and Phase II clinical trials of the vaccine, ACE527.

ETEC is responsible for up to 840 million infections and around 400,000 deaths worldwide each year, mostly in children in developing countries. It is also the most common cause of diarrhoea among travellers.

“This collaboration represents PATH’s first partnership to develop an ETEC vaccine, and we are delighted to work with ACE BioSciences on this promising candidate,” said Richard Walker, director of PATH’s Enteric Vaccine Initiative. “The ACE527 vaccine is designed to provide particularly broad coverage against ETEC, and this partnership will provide critical evidence to advance PATH’s work in developing vaccines to prevent enteric infections among children in the developing world.”

“The ACE527 vaccine is part of our pipeline of travellers’ diarrhoea vaccines, and the collaboration with PATH helps ensure we develop a safe and effective vaccine for use in travellers worldwide who visit developing countries where the risk of exposure to ETEC is high,” said Ingelise Saunders, CEO of ACE BioSciences.

“At the same time, we are excited about playing a part in the development of a vaccine to help PATH reach its goals.” There are currently no licensed vaccines against ETEC available. ACE527 is a live, whole cell, oral vaccine, which comprises three attenuated ETEC strains.

This agreement will bring the vaccine through to clinical proof of concept, including a Phase I dose finding safety and immunogenicity study and a Phase II challenge trial, with the goal of developing the first oral vaccine to prevent moderate or severe diarrhoea caused by ETEC.

Earlier this year, ACE BioSciences and PATH entered into a separate research collaboration to develop temperature-stable ETEC vaccine formulations. This research will support and complement the clinical development activities ACE BioSciences will conduct under the new agreement.

ACE BioSciences was founded in 2001 from centre of excellence in protein analysis at Odense University (now the Odense campus of the University of Southern Denmark).