The most common tick-borne illness currently has no approved vaccine
EU officials have agreed to study an experimental vaccine against Lyme disease, the world’s most common tick-borne illness, its developers said Friday.
The French-Swiss vaccine specialist Valneva and US pharma giant Pfizer say trials have shown a 70% efficacy rate in people aged five and above for a disease that currently has no approved vaccine.
Despite a disappointing trial result earlier this year, the two firms said the European Medicines Agency (EMA) had accepted its application for approval of its treatment, formally called PF-07307405.
The EMA’s acceptance “represents a major milestone, especially considering that more than 200 million people live in Lyme disease risk areas in Europe”, Valneva’s chief executive Thomas Lingelbach said in the statement.
