10 January 2012 - Rockville, Maryland - Aeras and the China National Biotec Group (CNBG) have agreed to jointly develop new tuberculosis (TB) vaccines. Multiple research institutes operating under the umbrella of CNBG will engage with Aeras on a strategy focused on the joint development, manufacturing and distribution of affordable new TB vaccines for use globally. The agreement spans all aspects of TB vaccine development - from vaccine discovery to pre-clinical research to clinical research to manufacturing - and positions CNBG as a major emerging player in the TB vaccine field.
Bacille Calmette-Guerin (BCG), the only currently-licensed TB vaccine, prevents severe forms of childhood TB but is not fully effective in preventing pulmonary TB, the most common form of the disease. As part of this collaboration, Aeras will license its recombinant BCG (rBCG) platform - which aims to improve upon the current TB vaccine - and other technologies to CNBG. The groups will jointly develop novel TB vaccines using the rBCG platform and other technologies provided by Aeras or CNBG's research institutes. A variety of candidate booster vaccines will be engineered to match the new constructs with a goal to create more efficacious and longer-lasting protection against TB disease.
Aeras is a non-profit product development organization dedicated to the development of effective TB vaccines and biologics to prevent TB across all age groups in an affordable and sustainable manner. CNBG, the controlling shareholder of which is China's National Pharmaceutical Corporation (Sinopharm), has 10 subsidiaries and is the largest biotech corporation in China engaged in the research and development, manufacturing and marketing of biological products. world.