Valneva reveals chikungunya vaccine data

VLA1553 had a high seroresponse rate among participants 28 days after receiving a single administration

Valneva – a company focused on developing vaccines for global conditions – has announced that critical phase 3 data in relation to its single-shot chikungunya vaccine, VLA1553, has been published in The Lancet.

The candidate is a single-shot live-attenuated vaccine and has been subjected to a double-blind, multi-location, placebo-controlled, randomised phase 3 trial. Consequently, the results demonstrated that VLA1553 had a very high seroresponse rate of 98.9% among participants, 28 days after receiving a single administration.

The immunogenicity profile, therefore, was similar across younger and older adult populations, while 96% of participants maintained seroresponse six months after their vaccination.

Furthermore, VLA1553 was generally safe and equally well tolerated in both younger and older adults.

Juan Carlos Jaramillo, chief medical officer of Valneva, was very optimistic about the vaccine candidate and the impact it could make: “This publication in The Lancet underlines the strength of VLA1553’s scientific approach and is consistent with the quality of our pivotal phase 3 study.”

He added: “We are pleased that more detailed results on our single-shot chikungunya vaccine candidate are now available to the scientific and broader public health communities.”

VLA1553 remains the only global chikungunya vaccine candidate undergoing regulatory review processes. Meanwhile, a biologic license application is currently under ‘priority review’ by the US Food and Drug Administration.

If approval is granted, VLA1553 could then become the very first licensed and available chikungunya vaccine.

Chikungunya is viral disease caused by the chikungunya virus and transmitted by Aedes mosquitoes. Four to seven days after a bite, infection leads to symptomatic disease in 72 to 92% of impacted people.