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Experts told The Washington Post the news was “huge,” and The Guardian heralded the announcement as “gamechanging” — but Brian Hooker, Ph.D., P.E., senior director of science and research for Children’s Health Defense, criticized the plan to use the “underserved” as “guinea pigs for the rest of the world.”
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Wellcome Trust on Wednesday announced plans to fund a phase 3 clinical trial for a tuberculosis (TB) vaccine that will be tested on 26,000 people at 50 sites in Africa and Southeast Asia over the next four to six years.
Gates committed $400 million to the trial and Wellcome — the largest funder of medical research in the U.K. and one of the largest in the world — committed an additional $150 million.
The trials will test the M72/AS01 vaccine, developed by pharmaceutical giant GSK (formerly GlaxoSmithKline) with partial funding from the Gates Foundation.
