European Vaccine Research and Development Infrastructure

Project Information

TRANSVAC2

Grant agreement ID: 730964

DOI

10.3030/730964

Project closed

EC signature date 28 July 2017

Start date 1 May 2017

End date 30 April 2023

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Research Infrastructures

Total cost

€ 14 556 732,34

EU contribution

€ 14 556 732,33

Coordinated by

EUROPEAN VACCINE INITIATIVE EV
Germany

Periodic Reporting for period 4 - TRANSVAC2 (European Vaccine Research and Development Infrastructure)

Reporting period: 2021-11-01 to 2023-04-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The overall objective of TRANSVAC2 was to support innovation for both prophylactic and therapeutic vaccine development. Additionally, the goal was to optimise the existing knowledge and expertise gained during the development of existing human and animal vaccines by supporting the translational gap in biomedical research, and by establishing mutually-beneficial cooperation between public vaccine R&D institutions, vaccine initiatives and networks, related infrastructures, SME’s, and partners in the pharmaceutical industry.

In order to achieve this, TRANSVAC2 aimed to reach the following specific objectives:
-Develop a sustainable infrastructure accelerating vaccine R&D - construct an efficient and coordinated research and innovation environment by integrating key infrastructures and related initiatives from Europe and beyond, focused around the sustainable vaccine infrastructure.
-Stimulate technological innovation within Europe by fostering research by providing scientific and technical services to the vaccine R&D community.
-Strengthen and disseminate European vaccine expertise by offering classroom and laboratory training in vaccinology
-Perform joint research activities that continuously enhance and improve the services offered by the infrastructure.
-Maximise engagement of the European vaccine industry, including large pharmaceutical companies and SMEs
-Disseminate scientific information and communicate TRANSVAC2’s activities to the scientific community and general public:
-Take an active role in policy development, providing evidence-based recommendations to legislators and regulatory bodies.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

Over the course of the project, several activities have been initiated and successfully completed:
- 14 calls for trans-national access have been completed. In total 95 applications were received (including 9 resubmissions) by 65 research institutions, including 20 SMEs, from 19 countries within Europe and 7 overseas countries. 106 services were granted to 58 projects. The provided services resulted in the advancement along the development pipeline of numerous vaccine candidates addressing a wide range of pathogens. The project results have been published in 47 peer-reviewed publications.

- 15 calls were opened for series of training modules in vaccinology at leading European centres on vaccine R&D. Within these calls, 31 trainings were conducted gathering in total of 721 applications, including 73 applications from Horizon Europe Widening Countries. 426 training applications were awarded.

- Several joint research activities (JRA) to improve services offered in TRANSVAC2 were planned and executed. Data generated in these tasks have been presented at international scientific meetings and published in peer reviewed journals and SOPs developed for TRANSVAC partners and the scientific community.

- A Board of Stakeholders (BoS) comprising representatives of policy and decision makers, industry associations and European infrastructures was established in August 2017. A first BoS workshop organized in June 2018 in Brussels was focused on identifying the gaps in existing European vaccine roadmaps (TRANSVAC and IPROVE). This meeting initated a process of updating TRANSVAC roadmap that was a basis of development of a strategic business plan for a sustainable vaccine R&D infrastructure in Europe. The continuation of the infrastructure beyond that horizon was developed by the ongoing EC-projects TRANSVAC-DS and ISIDORe.

- Multiple promotional actions with the use of different communication tools were implemented to disseminate scientific information and communicate TRANSVAC2’s activities to the scientific community and general public:
o TRANSVAC2 partners presented at over 70 scientific meetings, included posters, presentations, and sharing of fliers.
o The outreach of the project was enhanced by project and partners’ websites as well as social media (Twitter, LinkedIn).
o A promotional movie (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sadifFegks) and a story of TRANSVAC2 as a successful project (http://ec.europa.eu/research/infocentre/article_en.cfm?&artid=49836&caller=FP) are available to the general public.
o The TRANSVAC team has initiated and maintained a number of collaborations with other infrastructures and projects, to cooperate in dissemination activities. These include EC, IMI- funded projects, Research Infrastructures and Vaccine related initiatives and alliances. Consortium is constantly looking for new opportunities for collaboration.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The TRANSVAC2 consortium has developed and provided high-value scientific, technical and support services to the vaccine development community to keep pace with evolving technologies and procedures. These include development and implementation of novel adjuvants to address gaps in the current vaccine arsenal assays for characterizing and evaluating novel vaccine candidates, and establishing animal models for use in immunogenicity and efficacy trials. These collaborative efforts have yielded novel scientific services which were provided to the vaccine community.

In a survey of TRANSVAC TNA users at the conclusion of the project, approximately 60% reported that the provided services advanced their vaccine candidate to the next stage of development, and half responded that the provided service was important for applying for/obtaining additional funding to progress the project. In several cases, the TRANSVAC2 services were important for identifying issues with vaccine candidates and resulted in projects either being modified to address shortcomings or terminated in a timely manner to allow focus on more promising subjects, saving significant time and resources.

The TRANSVAC2 services led to the establishment of collaborations beyond the project framework in a majority of projects. The users were very satisfied with the provided TNA services and on average, users rated their overall experience with TRANSVAC2 TNA services 4.5 on a scale of 1-to-5. Of course, the true impact of the project will not be known for several years, as many TRANSVAC2 services were provided to projects in early stages of the development pipeline. A majority of TNA users reported that the projects are still undergoing pre-clinical research, while 30% of projects are either actively preparing for clinical trials or had begun such trials. Despite the ongoing nature of the supported projects, TRANSVAC2-associated studies have thus far produced 47 peer-reviewed publications.

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