OptiMalVax Nijmegen, The Netherlands

In late September 2022 Simon and Lloyd attended the annual meeting for OptiMalVax at Nijmegen in the Netherlands.

OptiMalVax is a European Commission Horizon 2020-funded Consortium, coordinated by the University of Oxford and working with a wide range of partners from across Europe. The Consortium’s goal is to develop an optimised and highly-effective multi-stage vaccine against P. falciparum malaria. Now in its final year, the Consortium met to share the latest data and review progress.

Lloyd presented on the Draper Lab’s latest efforts to develop a high efficacy blood-stage vaccine component targeting the essential RH5 invasion complex, including preclinical analyses as well as the GMP manufacture of a new vaccine candidate which previously received funding support from the Consortium. Simon outlined the next steps in the project, including the plan for an upcoming Phase Ia clinical trial of the new RH5-complex vaccine candidate in healthy UK adults.