Completed Infection & Immunity Public Health & Healthcare

Full Vaccine Value Assessment (FVVA) for a TCV-MAP, including the development of ‘best practice’ methodologies

Funder Wellcome Charity-funded
Recipient organisation Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance
Funding £1.5M
Period Sept 2021 — Jun 2024

In plain English

AI plain-English summary

A single decision about whether to build a factory for a new typhoid vaccine patch could determine whether millions of children in low-income countries ever receive it. The problem is a chicken-and-egg standoff. Vaccine makers hesitate to invest in manufacturing facilities for microarray patches (MAPs)—stamp-sized skin patches that deliver vaccine without a needle—until they see clear demand. But countries and global health funders hesitate to commit to a product that lacks a guaranteed supply. This project will produce a "full vaccine value assessment" for a typhoid conjugate vaccine patch (TCV-MAP), modelling costs, health benefits, manufacturing feasibility, and country-level uptake scenarios. If the assessment shows the patch is worth the investment, it could unlock funding for a dedicated manufacturing line, accelerating the patch’s development and eventual rollout. If not, funders can redirect resources to other vaccine innovations. The methodologies developed here will also serve as a template for assessing other vaccine patches, helping to streamline decisions across the entire MAP platform. The work is fundamentally about rationalising investment in a manufacturing process—an infrastructure problem that quietly determines whether a life-saving technology ever reaches the people who need it.

View original technical description
For MAPs, the VIPS vision and five-year goal are: - Vision: To implement MAP products for priority vaccines to overcome country immunisation barriers to ensure equitable access to, and improved effectiveness of, vaccines in LMICs and contribute to global health security. - Goal of the VIPS five-year action plan for MAPs: To accelerate development and future country uptake of MAPs as a platform technology for vaccine delivery in LMICs. The action plan has identified the development and communication of at least two value assessments for vaccine-MAPs as a critical enabler to inform and incentivise decision- making of key stakeholders. A significant bottleneck in the ability to advance product development of vaccine MAPs is the requirement for investment in establishing a manufacturing facility. This can be best rationalised through a vaccine-MAP portfolio approach. This first FVVA for TCV-MAP may inform the Wellcome Trust and other funders’ future investments in this candidate and the MAP platform more widely. If favorable, it could accelerate TCV-MAP development and preparation for uptake; if not, the resources could be diverted to other, potentially more worthy innovations. In addition, the methodologies developed during this FVVA test case may be applied to other vaccine MAPs or other vaccine product innovations.

View the original record at the funder ↗

Researchers

Marion Menozzi-Arnaud (EPMC Awardee)

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Original classification

Innovations AIGH Enterics Flagship

Plain English summaries and category classifications on this site are generated by AI and may not perfectly reflect the original research.