transdermal vaccine patches

POHsters, Remember the Insulpatch drama last Feb, well I just lifted some greatninfo from that site for you all to read. PoS.

www.insulpatch.com.au







Those who miss out on routine vaccination programmes tend to be people living in remote locations, urban slums and border areas. They also include indigenous groups, displaced populations, those lacking access to vaccination because of various social barriers, those lacking awareness or motivation to be vaccinated and those who refuse.?

The W.H.O has said that an estimated 2.1 million people around the world died in 2002 of diseases preventable by widely used vaccines. This toll included 1.4 million children under the age of five. Among these childhood deaths, over 500, 000 were caused by measles; nearly 400 000 by Hib; nearly 300 000 by pertussis; and 180 000 by neonatal tetanus.?

Numerous new vaccines with major potential for improving health in developing countries are in the research and development pipeline. They include vaccines for rotavirus diarrhoea, which kills 300 000 to 600 000 children under age five every year; human papillomavirus, a leading cause of cervical cancer, which afflicts some 500 000 women each year, 80% of them in developing countries; and pneumococcal disease, which causes a large fraction of the world's approximately two million annual deaths from childhood pneumonia. In addition, a conjugate vaccine now in development should be much more effective against Group A meningococcal disease (Men A), a frequently fatal form of meningitis that causes recurring epidemics in a number of countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Several of these vaccines - those against rotavirus, pneumococcal disease, and Men A - may be available in developing countries by 2008-2009.

The economics of vaccine development have tended to run against the interests of the world's poorer countries. Vaccines are much less profitable than medicines, and pharmaceutical firms understandably have been reluctant to make the high investments necessary to research and develop vaccines against infectious diseases, realizing that the largest pool of potential customers are governments that likely could not afford to pay enough for these products to ensure a profit.?

Part of the difficulty for manufacturers is in forecasting demand and in accounting for various market uncertainties and the ability for Vaccines to be administered, with new Transdermal Patch technology we expect to be able to deliver simple to apply Transdermal Patches across the first and developing worlds to stop the suffering and death of children.

Excitement about this approach is exemplified by completion of phase 3 clinical trails and submission for registration in Europe by Sanofi Pasteur (Paris) and Becton Dickinson (Franklin Lakes, NJ, USA) for their microneedle-based influenza vaccine; major investments in Iomai (Gaithersburg, MD, USA) for their transdermal vaccine patch portfolio; and a growing number of academic and industry laboratories engaging in this transdermal field of research in Australia and overseas including 3M, Eli Lilly, CSL,?Nuvo, Acrux and Phosphagenics.