On 8-10 September 2014, WHO convened the first meeting of the new Product Development for Vaccines Advisory Committee. This new Committee fills a previous gap in WHO’s advisory structure for vaccines by providing a horizon-scanning role across upstream (preclinical to Phase 2) pre-licensure vaccine research and disease for diseases of potential priority to WHO. The Committee will advise WHO on strategic prioritization based on the following 3 criteria: unmet global public health need to be met by new vaccines, the likelihood of a product emerging in the mid term (for the first meeting this was specified as by 2020), and the added value of WHO’s engagement in a particular Pathogen area for advancement of progress in a given field.
In addition key cross-cutting issues in pre-licensure vaccine R&D will be considered. At this meeting these were Public Disclosure of Clinical Trial Results, and the moves towards a WHO Position in this regard. Secondly the area of human challenge trials for evaluation of vaccines was discussed.
The meeting report will be published in Vaccine.
As a read-ahead for the committee members, in order to help them with their deliberations and advice to WHO, Global Pipeline Analyses were prepared for 19 pathogens. WHO acknowledges the following individuals/groups for providing the first drafts of these pipeline analyses, which after some editing by agreement with the writers, are hereby provided on this website as a resource for the global vaccine R&D community.
The background documents for paratyphoid fever and nontyphoidal Salmonelloses are available on WHO’s website.
