As foreign powers approve Ebola vaccines, U.S. drug makers lag in development pipeline
In the face of the West Africa Ebola crisis, U.S and Canadian government laboratories and a number of companies in Europe raced to test experimental vaccines.
A year and a half after that outbreak was declared over, the world has two licensed Ebola vaccines: One was made by scientists in Russia, the other by scientists in China.
And what of the vaccines devised in the U.S., Canada, and Europe? They are still meandering through the developmental pipeline.
It now looks like it may be 2019 at the earliest before an Ebola vaccine could be licensed by the Food and Drug Administration — nearly four years after a landmark trial showed that one of the candidates, Merck’s V920 vaccine, works. It is the only Ebola vaccine ever to have completed a crucial Phase 3 trial.
Read more: Merck will miss long-promised target for filing Ebola vaccine license with FDA
