26 Oct The Path Towards New TB Vaccines

The 51st Union World Conference on Lung Health went virtual this year, bringing together experts in TB over the course of 5 days. Among other experts, Prof. Frank Cobelens presented on ‘A global roadmap for the research and development of new TB vaccines.’ This presentation shared findings from the development of a global roadmap for the research and development of new tuberculosis (TB) vaccines, which was launched in 2020. The roadmap articulates elements of need across the clinical development, delivery and implementation of new TB vaccines in the form of research questions, as well as capacity needs with an end-to-end perspective. Crosscutting challenges and opportunities at the scientific, financial, policy, regulatory, manufacturing and access interface were discussed in this presentation. AIGHD, along with a broad range of stakeholders, have been working on developing the TB roadmapping project.

Other presenters from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, IAVI, and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) gave overviews WHO’s Product Profile Characteristics for new TB vaccines, the current clinical development pipeline and modeling work that is ongoing to determine the full public health value of new TB vaccines. The presentation concluded with a lively debate.

Frank Cobelens was also the co-chair of the Scientific Committee for 4 sessions of TBScience2020 and co-moderated the session on TB vaccine development and biomarker discovery.