Partnering with the best
The Meningitis Vaccine Project is a partnership between the World Health Organization and PATH. PATH is primarily responsible for product development, while WHO is responsible for surveillance and vaccine introduction.
MVP has collaborators that assist the project in different aspects of work.
‘Most people don’t realize that meningitis is such an important contributor to poverty, with both short- and long-term costs. For instance, if you can’t be home to tend to the crops, they die, and future income is lost.’
Anaïs Colombini, Agence de Médecine Préventive
Pharmaceutical work and vaccine manufacturing
MVP partners with the Serum Institute of India Ltd. (SIIL) in Pune, India, which manufactures the meningococcal A (MenA) conjugate vaccine.
Synco Bio Partners B.V. in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, supplied meningitis group A polysaccharide (MenA PS), one of the two main components of the vaccine. SIIL supplied tetanus toxoid (TT), the second main component of the vaccine.
The Laboratory of Bacterial Polysaccharides in the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER), a center of the US Food and Drug Administration, developed the MenA PS-TT conjugation technology before transferring it to SIIL. The UK National Institute for Biological Standards and Control (NIBSC) in Potters Bar provides testing of the vaccine lots produced by SIIL.
Clinical and laboratory work
MVP clinical trials are carried out at different sites in India and Africa. Recent and current partners are B.Y.L. Nair Charitable Hospital, India (PsA-TT-001); Nizam's Institute of Medical Sciences, India (PsA-TT-001); King Edward Memorial Hospital (KEM), India (PsA-TT-001, PsA-TT-003[a], PsA-TT-005); the Medical Research Council Laboratories (MRC), the Gambia (PsA-TT-002, PsA-TT-003); Navrongo Health Research Center (NHRC), Ghana (PsA-TT-004); Center for Vaccine Development-Mali (CVD-Mali), Mali (PsA-TT-002, PsA-TT-003, PsA-TT-006); Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD), Senegal (PsA-TT-003).
MVP also partners with the Agence Africaine de Recherche en Santé Humaine (AARSH), Senegal, which monitors all of the MVP clinical trials in Africa. DiagnoSearch Life Sciences Pvt Ltd. (formerly iGATE Clinical Research International), India, provides data management and statistical analysis services for all of our studies as well as clinical trial monitoring for all of MVP’s clinical trials in India.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in Bethesda, and the UK Health Protection Agency (HPA) in Manchester provide extensive laboratory testing services for MVP clinical studies.
MVP also partners with EpidMol, a laboratory based at the University of Siena that provides storage for sera obtained through MVP clinical trials. The laboratory at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health (NIPH) in Oslo tested pharyngeal swabs obtained during a Phase 2 clinical trial to ascertain meningococcal A carriage levels in the study population.
Other key partners
The following groups provide strategic input and collaboration on a broad range of activities, including surveillance, epidemic control, socioeconomic studies, and vaccine introduction plans: the International Coordinating Group (ICG) on Vaccine Provision for Epidemic Meningitis Control, Agence de Médecine Préventive (AMP), Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), and UNICEF.