AJ Vaccines is proud to be a commercial partner in the development of the world's first vaccine against Hepatitis C - a breakthrough with the potential to save millions of lives globally.
Read the news from Innovation Fund Denmark:
A new Danish research project will develop the world's first vaccine against the hepatitis C virus, which infects one million people every year. An effective vaccine is essential to reach the WHO's goal of eliminating liver inflammation caused by the virus. Innovation Fund Denmark is investing DKK 15.7 million in the project.
50 million people worldwide are chronically infected with hepatitis C virus (HCV), leading to severe liver disease and 250,000 deaths every year.The Danish research project HCVIVA is now developing the world's first vaccine against HCV, with the ambition to help combat the global health threat posed by HCV.
The project is led by Professor Judith Gottwein from the Department of Infectious Medicine at Hvidovre Hospital:
- “HCV is difficult to make a vaccine against because there are many different virus variants and the virus particle has a structure that hides important recognition areas for the immune system. However, we have overcome this challenge and we have developed an innovative HCV vaccine candidate that could be a key tool to limit the spread of HCV,” she says.
An HCV vaccine does not yet exist. Only a few candidates have previously been tested on humans and none of these have made it to the market. The goal of the project is for the project partners to further develop the HCV vaccine candidate so that it can be put into production by a pharmaceutical company and tested on humans within four to six years after the end of the innovation project. The commercial partner in HCVIVA is the Danish pharmaceutical company AJ Vaccines.
- In the project, we have brought together a strong group of academic and industrial partners whose expertise covers all parts of the vaccine product development process.
This is crucial for us to achieve our goal of bringing HCVIVA's vaccine candidate to market and making it widely available where it is needed,” says Judith Gottwein.
In addition to contributing to solving a major global health challenge, the development of the HCV vaccine will help raise awareness of HCV, strengthen the Danish biotech sector and create 150-200 jobs.
HCVIVA-partners
The project is led by the Capital Region of Denmark with Professor Judith Gottwein from the Copenhagen Hepatitis C Program (CO-HEP), Hvidovre Hospital and the University of Copenhagen.
In addition to Hvidovre Hospital and the University of Copenhagen, partners in HCVIVA are AJ Vaccines, Statens Serum Institut, Austrian Nuvonis Technologies and the European non-profit organization European Vaccine Initiative.