[Kalpana]

• Novartis enters a strategic agreement with Biological-E
  

With great power comes great responsbility and Novartis is fully ready to deliver all it can to reach the poor and serve humanity. A big cheers to a great step taken by a great company.

8th July 2013, Novartis entered into an agreement with Biological-E to develop and deliver affordable and high quality vaccines to prevent against typhoid and paratyphoid fever. As per report development has taken five years, the Novartis Vaccines Institute for Global Health (NVGH), part of the Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research, has developed it with funding by the Fondazione Monte dei Paschi di Siena and Regione Toscana through the Sclavo Vaccines Association (Italy). Designed vaccine is a dual-acting vaccine with components against both typhoid and paratyphoid fevers is being developed, a huge support from the Wellcome Trust is also projected. The prevention might help to bring quite a relief in the endemic regions like India, Sub-Saharan part etc.

Per year approx 21 million cases of typhoid fever and five million cases of paratyphoid A fever are reported worldwide, especially in areas that are yet to develop hygienic sanitation and clean drinking water. Victims are mainly children under the age of two for whom medicines and vaccines related to typhoid are not properly developed and tested, and as of now there is no vaccine is available for any age group against paratyphoid fever.

Why Biological-E and what do we expect from the partnership?

Biological-E is an India based vaccine development profile company and has a proven track record in addressing the economical problem by provider cheaper and better efficacy vaccines.

We should expect cheaper and high standard vaccines that can be supplied throughout the world other than developed countries.

BioE is working to reach World Health Organization (WHO) pre-qualification and fulfill specific obligations & standards to meet Novartis working and quality standards. The agreement is presently worldwide except for developed countries, where Novartis will retain its rights and production status.

Lets hope for more agreements like this in future, this will tremendously improve public status in developing countries.