The Gates Foundation unveiled plans Wednesday to fund a long-awaited trial for what, if proven effective, would be the first new tuberculosis vaccine in over a century. … The Gates Foundation, which also funded early research on the shot, has committed $400 million to the trial, and the U.K.’s Wellcome Trust is committing up to an additional $150 million. The trial will take place across more than 50 sites in Africa and Asia and likely take four to six years to complete, Trevor Mundel, the Gates Foundation president of global health, told reporters. … Although the Gates Medical Research Institute is assuring manufacturing the vaccine, GSK will continue supplying an adjuvant, a molecule designed to amplify the vaccines’ signal to the immune system. A GSK spokesperson said that given the complexity of running a Phase 3 trial in lower-income countries, the company believed the institute was the best organization to move forward with the vaccine, and that GSK’s “most important contribution to global health is the science, investigating proof-of-concept through phase 2.” If the vaccine succeeds, the Gates Foundation’s work will be far from over. Mundel said the foundation would need to find a partner to manufacture the drug for a commercial market. And given that tuberculosis primarily affects the poorest groups in low-income countries, experts warn rollout will be daunting.
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