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GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) presented 18-month safety and efficacy data for RTS,S and plans to submit the vaccine for regulatory review next year.

The lowdown: When GSK presented initial safety and efficacy data on its RTS,S malaria vaccine, it was met with a mix of muted enthusiasm and disappointment. The vaccine offered protection, but not to the degree to which researchers had hoped (50.4% efficacy in children aged 5 to 17 months, and 30.1% efficacy in infants aged 6 to 12 weeks).

While the new data don't change the less than perfect top-line results, they do start to address concerns that efficacy will wane over time. GSK reported at the 6th Multilateral Initiative on Malaria Pan-African Malaria Conference in Durban, South Africa, that at 18 months the vaccine offered efficacy in 46% of children, and in 27% of infants.

GSK and its non-profit partner PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative (MVI) plan to submit the recombinant vaccine for regulatory review in the European Union next year, for a potential 2015 approval.

Around two dozen other vaccines are in various stages of clinical development for malaria. In September, Sanaria CEO Stephen Hoffman, who contributed to the development of RTS,S, reported in Science some preliminary clinical success with the PfSPZ vaccine, which is made by purifying attenuated sporozoites from the salivary glands of irradiated mosquitoes. None of six individuals given the highest dose of the vaccine was infected following experimental challenge with malaria, compared with three out of nine individuals who received a lower dose of vaccine and five out of six non-vaccinated individuals.