Emergent Shares Decline Following Commencement Of Initial-Stage Lassa Virus Vaccine Candidate Study

Emergent BioSolutions EBS has dosed first patient in its Phase 1 study evaluating the safety and immunogenicity of EBS-LASV in healthy subjects.

EBS-LASV is a recombinant VSV-vectored Lassa virus vaccine candidate being evaluated for prevention of disease caused by Lassa virus infection.

The Phase 1 dose-escalation study will evaluate the safety and immunogenicity of rVSV-vectored Lassa virus vaccine in approximately 36 healthy adults.

The study is co-funded by Emergent and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI)

Kelly Warfield, SVP for research and development, said, "Over the last 24 years, Emergent's mission to protect and enhance life and commitment to help mitigate public health threats have remained unchanged. We are proud to deploy our product development and partnering capabilities to address emerging infectious diseases like Lassa fever, for which there is currently no approved vaccine or therapeutic, and to advance our pipeline for patients.”

Lassa virus a single-stranded RNA virus belonging to the family Arenaviridae, that can cause the acute viral hemorrhagic illness known as Lassa fever.

Price Action : Emergent shares are trading around 3 percent down at $22.44 on Tuesday at the time of publication.