VACCINE INSIGHTS

Vaccine Spotlights 2023

January

Preclinical research & next-generation vaccine platforms
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Preclinical research & next-generation vaccine platforms

Isis Kanevsky
Guest Editor:
Isis Kanevsky, Senior Director Bacterial Vaccines at Pfizer
  • Promising new vaccines and approaches in preclinical development
  • Scientific, regulatory, and manufacturing challenges of new and emerging platforms
  • Progress toward vaccines for challenging diseases
  • Beyond antibody response: harnessing cytotoxic T cells and trained immunity
  • New technology and approaches in cancer vaccines

February

Raw materials & supply chain
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Raw materials & supply chain

  • Regulatory agency expectations for raw and starting materials
  • Improved demand forecasting and inventory management of raw materials and critical consumables
  • Increasing consistency, scalability, and standardization - and reducing costs
  • Managing complex international supply chains
  • Unique challenges for LMIC

March

RNA vaccines Part 1: Exploring future potential
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RNA vaccines Part 1: Exploring future potential

Sudha  Chivukula
Guest Editor:
Sudha Chivukula, Head of Discovery Biology, mRNA Center of Excellence at Sanofi
  • Emerging applications for RNA vaccines
  • Business and finance
  • Exploring the potential for rapid response vaccine production
  • Next-generation RNA vaccines – circular RNA, self-amplifying RNA

April

Advances in vaccine manufacturing Part 1: Upstream advances and intensifying production
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Advances in vaccine manufacturing Part 1: Upstream advances and intensifying production

  • Upstream bioprocessing
  • Emerging production systems e.g., yeast and BICS
  • Intensifying vaccine production
  • Disruptive technologies for vaccine manufacturing

May

Pandemic preparedness: getting ready for the next “Disease X”
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Pandemic preparedness: getting ready for the next “Disease X”

  • Tackling new SARS-CoV-2 variants and novel coronaviruses
  • Rapid response vaccine development & manufacture
  • Moving from product to platform in regulatory evaluation
  • Veterinary vaccines & One Health
  • Broadly protective & multivalent vaccines
  • The importance of equity in global countermeasures
  • Developing better early-warning systems

June

Advances in formulation & administration
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Advances in formulation & administration

Ana Jaklenec
Guest Editor:
Ana Jaklenec, Research Scientist & Co-Principal Investigator, Langer Lab at David H Koch Institute Professor MIT
  • Advances in alternative administration routes, including transdermal, intranasal, inhaled, and oral
  • Deepening our understanding of adjuvant mechanisms and predicting the adjuvants of the future
  • Tailoring adjuvants to specific populations
  • Eliminating cold chain with lyophilization or liquid stabilization

July

Clinical development
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Clinical development

Jacqueline Miller
Guest Editor:
Jacqueline Miller, Senior Vice President, Therapeutic Area Head, Infectious Diseases at Moderna
  • Challenges facing vaccine clinical trials
  • Improving communication between CROs, sites, and developers.
  • Improving the efficiency of clinical trials via better clinical trial design
  • Creating a global network of clinical trial sites
  • Human challenge trials
  • Decentralized trials

August

Understanding immune responses
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Understanding immune responses

Wayne Koff
Guest Editor:
Wayne Koff, President and CEO, Human Immunome Project, and Adjunct Professor of Epidemiology
  • Understanding immune responses to better predict immunogenicity of candidate vaccines at all ages
  • Omics as an emerging tool for understanding early immune responses and optimizing regimes
  • Correlates of protection: can they be used to license forthcoming vaccines?
  • Immune responses in infants/elderly/pregnant

September

CMC & analytics
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CMC & analytics

  • Accelerating vaccine lot release without compromising quality
  • Meeting evolving regulatory guidance at all stages of development
  • Best practice in assay development - from immunogenicity to exposure and safety
  • Moving from preclinical and early clinical to GMP production
  • Extracting actionable information from large analytical data sets
  • New and emerging analytical technologies, including advances in process analytical technology (PAT), to reduce time to market

October

RNA vaccines Part 2: Addressing ongoing challenges
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RNA vaccines Part 2: Addressing ongoing challenges

  • Tackling stability, immunogenicity, and cost of materials
  • Overcoming challenges in mRNA process development and manufacturing
  • Improving delivery with modified LNPs or polymer-based delivery systems
  • Regulatory considerations

November

Advances in vaccine manufacturing Part 2: Downstream bottlenecks and increasing manufacturing capacity
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Advances in vaccine manufacturing Part 2: Downstream bottlenecks and increasing manufacturing capacity

  • Downstream bioprocessing & fill/finish
  • Technological and policy innovations to boost vaccine manufacturing capacity worldwide
  • Localized and flexible vaccine manufacturing approaches to allow more efficient and equitable distribution
  • Speeding up technology transfer in LMIC

December

Tools of tomorrow
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Tools of tomorrow

  • Enabling tools and emerging vaccine platforms likely to make a splash in 2024.