New plan could speed AIDS vaccine development

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The Global HIV/AIDS Vaccine Enterprise, an international alliance of independent organizations supporting HIV vaccine research, has issued a roadmap to speed the development of a vaccine by promoting new collaboration, resources, and strategic focus.

“Harnessing new scientific opportunities for HIV vaccine development will require an effort of a magnitude, intensity, and design without precedent in biomedical research,” the coordinating committee of the Enterprise writes in the Public Library of Science-Medicine.

"The first trial of an HIV vaccine was done almost 18 years ago. We have come to realize that developing an HIV vaccine is much more complex than we all thought,” Dr. Jose Esparza, of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, told AMN Health.

To make an HIV vaccine a reality in the foreseeable future, “we need a new game plan that brings more corroboration, a better exchange of information and a more systematic approach to explore different vaccines,” he said.

The committee hopes to “develop a common set of criteria to make decisions about which ones should be tested and which ones should move to larger scale trials,” he added. “The field today is inundated with ‘me-too” products, similar candidate vaccines, and not enough innovation.”

The scientists were able to agree on the scientific questions that must be answered to develop an HIV vaccine that induces both cellular and antibody immunity, Esparza said. But without the Enterprise, “the current system does not have the required infrastructure or resources to answer those questions.”

Specific goals will be to develop new standard assays, a system of “core” reference laboratories that will service satellite labs; a global quality assurance function to encompass all participating laboratories; and a source of common lab materials.

The Enterprise Coordinating Committee estimates that, to meet these goals, current expenditures on HIV vaccine research and development will need to be doubled to $1.2 billion annually.

This proposal is “an excellent start to a continuing dialogue of utmost importance,” Dr. David D. Ho, the director of the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center in New York, comments in a related editorial.

SOURCE: Public Library of Science-Medicine, February 2005.

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