Invention: Next-generation vaccines against meningitis, whooping cough and other infections
Infectious diseases such as diphtheria, bacterial meningitis and whooping cough have been practically eradicated in the developed world, thanks to Rino Rappuoli. Over the course of a research career spanning more than four decades, the Italian microbiologist has pioneered "conjugate vaccines" that have launched a new generation of immunisations, now administered to millions of people worldwide.
Before Rappuoli's game-changing
inventions, vaccines contained "weakened" versions of actual
pathogens that triggered the body into building immunity. But this approach,
used since the late 1800s, yields no protection against aggressive infections such
as meningococcus, the bacterium behind infectious meningitis. Shifting the
paradigm, Rappuoli's "conjugate vaccines" are bio-engineered in
the laboratory by attaching bacterial fragments to carrier proteins that elicit
a strong immune response.
The vaccines, developed during Rappuoli's tenure at the Sclavo Research Centre in Italy, do not just offer an unprecedented level of protection. They have also become standard immunisations against a large number of infections including meningitis, diphtheria, whooping cough, haemophilus influenza and helicobacter, and are now administered to millions of people every year.
Rappuoli is credited with being one of the founders of cellular microbiology, where cell biology and microbiology meet. His techniques, including a process known as "reverse vaccinology" used to create the world's first genome-derived vaccines in 1999, have revolutionised vaccine design.
Societal benefit
The impact of Rappuoli's invention can hardly be overstated: his vaccinations have been given to millions as part of routine programmes. First released in 1993 by California-based biotechnology company Chiron, his vaccine against pertussis (whooping cough) eradicated the disease in Italy within 24 months.
Rappuoli also made history in the late 1990s by developing and patenting the first-ever vaccines for each strand of meningococcal meningitis (A, B, C, Y and W-135). In the late 1990s, meningitis C was incorporated into the UK's national immunisation programme, virtually eradicating the disease within two years. In 2015, the meningitis B vaccine was also incorporated, with public health experts recently estimating that the vaccine is 95% effective. Meanwhile, meningitis is still rampant in resource-poor regions, where invasive meningococcal diseases (IMDs) still affect an estimated 1.2 million people every year.
Economic benefit
Rappuoli's anti-meningitis vaccine, Bexsero, proved a blockbuster drug for licence owners GlaxoSmithKline. In 2016, sales of Bexsero reached EUR 465 million, nearly three-and-a-half times more than in 2015 (EUR 136 million). In the UK and other European countries, pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PVC) is routinely administered to infants, while 82.9% of American children aged 19 to 35 months received the vaccine in 2014.
Analysts at Transparency Market Research valued the global meningococcal vaccines market at EUR 1.36 billion in 2013, projected to grow to EUR 4 billion per year by 2022. Within that market, conjugate vaccines and vaccines developed by reverse vaccinology are dominant forces, expected to account for 71% of total revenue (EUR 2.8 billion) by 2022.
