In late January, privately-held biotech firm Apovia (San Diego, CA) and the Malaria Vaccine Initiative (MVI; Rockville, MD), a non-profit effort founded by computer billionaire Bill Gates, signed a two-year agreement to produce a new malaria vaccine. In return for undisclosed up-front and milestone payments, Apovia will manufacture a vaccine comprising virus-like particles that display pieces of malaria parasite proteins that stimulate the immune system against a future exposure to the disease. “It's a very promising technology that induces a very strong immune response that we haven't seen before,” says Walter Brand, MVI program manager. Apovia has already tested the vaccine in laboratory animal studies and limited primate studies, and Apovia president Ben Thornton says he expects the vaccine to enter human clinical trials in the third quarter of 2001. If the vaccine is a success, MVI requires that Apovia find a way of making it affordable to developing nations, where malaria can kill up to three children a minute, according to MVI figures.