Takeda Pharmaceutical has announced collaboration with Frazier Healthcare Partners to launch HilleVax to develop and commercialise the former’s clinical stage norovirus vaccine candidate, HIL-214 (formerly TAK-214).
HIL-214 is a virus-like particle (VLP) based vaccine candidate and was analysed in nine human clinical trials with safety data from more than 4,500 and immunogenicity data from over 2,000 participants.
The vaccine has completed a randomised, placebo-controlled Phase IIb field efficacy study, which was conducted in 4,712 adult subjects, where it was well-tolerated and showed clinical proof of concept in preventing moderate-to-severe cases of acute gastroenteritis from norovirus infection.
Norovirus is a common intestinal infection that causes vomiting, nausea, diarrhea, abdominal cramps, and sometimes fever that may lead to clinically significant dehydration.
As part of the collaboration, Takeda has given license for exclusive development and commercialisation of HIL-214 to HilleVax across the world outside Japan and retained marketing rights in Japan.
The company stated that HilleVax will integrate some Japan development activities into its worldwide development.
With this collaboration, Takeda will focus its efforts on dengue, zika, Covid-19 and pandemic influenza vaccines.
Takeda Global Vaccine Business Unit president Rajeev Venkayya said: “Takeda and Frazier have a history of successfully partnering together, and we are confident in HilleVax’s capabilities to progress HIL-214, the most advanced norovirus vaccine candidate in development with the potential to address the huge global burden of norovirus-associated acute gastroenteritis.
“This will allow Takeda to focus its efforts and resources on our dengue vaccine, which we have begun filing for licensure around the world, our pandemic programs, and our partnership with the US Government to develop a Zika vaccine.”
In a separate development, Takeda and PeptiDream have expanded their collaborative research and license agreement to develop peptide-drug conjugates (PDCs) for several central nervous system (CNS) targets.