India's drug price regulator, NPPA, has approved a 20% price increase for Serum Institute of India's BCG, measles, and measles-rubella vaccines. This decision is unusual given the company's market dominance and comes after Serum Institute argued for the hike due to rising costs and the vaccines' critical public health importance.
Serum Institute of India will manufacture clinical trial doses of an experimental Ebola vaccine from Oxford University, backed by up to $8.6 million in funding from CEPI. The vaccine uses the same ChAdOx1 platform as the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine, aiming for rapid development and affordable access for affected nations in Africa.
Scientists at Oxford University are rapidly developing a new experimental vaccine against the rare Bundibugyo Ebola variant, potentially ready for clinical trials in 2-3 months. The current outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo has seen 750 suspected cases and 177 deaths.
