Sanaria Inc. said that, with support from the PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative (MVI), it has “initiated a Phase 1 clinical trial — the first tests in adult volunteers — of its unique malaria vaccine candidate. Unlike other malaria vaccine candidates, Sanaria’s approach deploys a weakened form of the whole malaria parasite harvested from irradiated mosquitoes instead of small portions of the parasite.” Sanaria’s vaccine candidate will be assessed in healthy US volunteers at two sites in Maryland — the US Naval Medical Research Center Clinical Trials Center in Bethesda and the Center for Vaccine Development at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore. Recruitment has begun for the safety and efficacy study that will involve some 104 volunteers, with inoculation of the first groups expected to begin in mid-May.

Dr. Christian Loucq, Director of MVI, commented, “Initiation of this trial expands the spectrum of malaria vaccines in clinical development today. This trial marks a major achievement in a collaborative development effort that aims to determine whether Sanaria’s vaccine candidate is safe and effective.”

(PRNewswire, 23 April 2009)