SAVE THE DATE! 6th Global Forum on TB Vaccines

The 6th Global Forum on TB Vaccines will take place from February 22-24, 2022 in Toulouse, France, under the high patronage of Mr. Emmanuel Macron, President of the French Republic, and under the patronage of Mr. Olivier Véran, Minister for Solidarity and Health. The theme of the 6th Global Forum is “New horizons for TB vaccines.” The 6th Global Forum on TB Vaccines is currently planned to be a hybrid conference, with options for in-person and online participation. The Organizing Partners are carefully monitoring the COVID-19 pandemic and its potential impact on the in-person component of the 6th Global Forum. Information will be posted as it becomes available. Read our full COVID statement.

Abstracts and Registration

The Global Forum Organizers and Organizing Committee invite abstracts for potential oral or poster (on-site or virtual) presentation at the 6th Global Forum on TB Vaccines. The abstract submission platform will be open from Sep. 1-Oct. 15, 2021. Learn more. Registration for the 6th Global Forum will open in October 2021.

Virtual Global Forum Sessions Online

Did you miss a session from the Virtual Global Forum? Is there a session you would like to watch again? Recordings of sessions from the Virtual Global Forum are available on-demand for registered participants until Oct. 22, 2021. Recordings of the following sessions are now available online for public viewing:

• Opening Session

• Panel Discussion: Leveraging COVID-19 to advance TB vaccine R&D

• Panel Discussion: Closing the financing gap for TB vaccine R&D

• Closing Session

Presentations from the Virtual Global Forum on TB Vaccines are available on the program page of the Virtual Global Forum website.

Sponsorship Opportunities

Sponsorship opportunities are available to support the 6th Global Forum and to raise your organization's visibility throughout the meeting.

Contact us to discuss sponsorship opportunities in more detail.

About the Forum

The Global Forum on TB Vaccines is the world’s largest gathering of stakeholders striving to develop new vaccines to prevent TB. It provides an important and unique opportunity to review the state of the field, share the latest research findings, and identify new and innovative approaches to TB vaccine R&D, with the end goal of developing and deploying new TB vaccines as quickly as possible.

Follow the Global Forum on New TB Vaccines on Twitter for news and updates.

TB Vaccine Development Pathway – new updates and guidance available

The Tuberculosis Vaccine Initiative (TBVI) and IAVI have updated the TB Vaccine Development Pathway. This online tool provides a structured development path and gating criteria for TB vaccine candidates and may be useful for vaccine development in general.

In addition to TB specific considerations and target population considerations, the updated Pathway now includes vaccine technology specific considerations. In the field of vaccinology, new technological platforms have emerged, each with specific challenges in their development. The Pathway now includes considerations for inactivated and live/attenuated, adjuvanted subunit, viral vectored and DNA/RNA vaccines.

Guidance on planning and operating ‘community engagement’ activities has also been added. These activities aim at building relationships and working collaborations in the field, and are initiated at Stage C (Preclinical Evaluations) of the Pathway.

Finally, the market, access and implementation (MAI) function which ultimately aims to secure introduction of a TB vaccine into national immunisation programmes, describes the main steps of a comprehensive approach initiated in early development stages.

Reviews

Since their first publication in 2012, the stage gate criteria for TB vaccine development have been thoroughly revised with input from a wide range of stakeholders. The first revision resulted in the publication of the online TB Vaccine Development Pathway in 2018. Based upon consultations and as new knowledge and insights emerged from the field, the stage gate criteria have again been updated, and published online in June 2021.

“On behalf of the Working Group members I want to thank the whole TB vaccine community for joining us in this huge collaborative effort. The breadth and scope of this project is exceptional. Our deepest hope is that the TB Vaccine Development Pathway will contribute to the creation of safe and effective TB vaccines that will put an end to one of the biggest threats to our global health.“ Georges Thiry, Chairman of the Working Group

Feedback from users welcome

The field of TB vaccine development is dynamic by nature and users of the TB Vaccine Development Pathway are encouraged to provide us with feedback, ideas and insight by using the contact form of the online tool, with the aim to incorporate new developments and best practice for the benefit of all.

About

The development of vaccines can be divided into stages, from discovery to implementation. The decision to move a vaccine candidate to the next stage is challenging. The TB Vaccine

Development Pathway serves as a guidance tool to help developers consider all the stages of development and to advance a vaccine to its next stage of development.

The TB Vaccine Development Pathway was established by a team of scientific and technical experts from TBVI and IAVI with the input of the TB vaccine community. The tool has been developed on behalf of the Global TB Vaccine Partnership (GTBVP) and funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

More information

• Please visit the online TB Vaccine Development Pathway

• Read the article The TB vaccine development pathway – An innovative approach to accelerating global TB vaccine development

• Brochure ‘TB Vaccine Development Pathway 2021 - Stage Gate Criteria for TB vaccine development’

An innovative approach to accelerating global TB vaccine development

Recently, Tuberculosis published the article The TB vaccine development pathway – An innovative approach to accelerating global TB vaccine development. The publication emphasizes the importance of a diverse TB vaccine pipeline to address TB-specific challenges in vaccine development. Individual vaccine candidates must be advanced rationally and the global pipeline must be managed in a more responsive and resource-efficient way, especially in the current constrained funding environment.

The TB Vaccine Development Pathway has been developed to provide information and guidance for TB vaccine development from discovery to implementation.

The Pathway is underpinned by generic and TB vaccine-specific guidelines, regulatory frameworks, and best practice, and was compiled by a multi-disciplinary team of scientific and technical experts with the input of the TB vaccine community. The Pathway is a unique tool to guide and accelerate the development of TB vaccine candidates and may be useful for other vaccine development fields.

Free open access article: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tube.2020.102040