Safety study of new candidate underway.

• Position: Ebola Vaccine

Initial human testing of an investigational vaccine to prevent Ebola virus disease has begun. The early-stage trial is testing a vaccine co-developed by the National Institutes of Health and GlaxoSmithKline, and will evaluate the experimental vaccine's safety and ability to generate an immune system response in healthy adults.

The study is the first of several Phase 1 clinical trials that are examining the investigational vaccine and an experimental Ebola vaccine developed by the Public Health Agency of Canada and licensed to NewLink Genetics Corp. The others are launching throughout the fall. These trials are conducted in healthy adults who are not infected with Ebola virus to determine if the vaccine is safe and induces an adequate immune response.

In parallel, NIH has partnered with a British-based international consortium that includes the Wellcome Trust and Britain's Medical Research Council and Department for International Development to test the vaccine candidate among healthy volunteers in the United Kingdom and in the West African countries of Gambia and Mali.

Additionally, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has initiated discussions with Ministry of Health officials in Nigeria about the prospects for conducting a Phase 1 safety study among healthy adults in that country.

The pace of human safety testing for experimental Ebola vaccines has been expedited in response to the ongoing Ebola virus outbreak in West Africa. According to the World Health Organization, more than 1,400 suspected and confirmed deaths from Ebola...