Valneva Completes BLA Submission to U.S. FDA for its Single-Shot Chikungunya Vaccine Candidate

Valneva SE recently announced it has completed rolling submission of the Biologics License Application (BLA) to the US FDA for its single-shot chikungunya vaccine candidate, VLA1553. Valneva is seeking approval of its investigational chikungunya vaccine in persons aged 18 years and above.

This BLA application follows final pivotal Phase 3 data reported in March 2022 and final lot-to-lot consistency results reported in May 2022. A clinical study of VLA1553 in adolescents is ongoing in Brazil, which may support future regulatory submissions in this group if VLA1553 is initially approved in adults. The company also recently reported positive antibody persistence data with a 99% seroresponse rate 12 months after a single-dose vaccination.

Juan Carlos Jaramillo, MD, Chief Medical Officer of Valneva, said “The completion of our BLA submission is extremely important as it takes us a step closer to potentially bringing a preventative solution to fight this debilitating disease. Chikungunya is a major public health threat transmitted to humans by infected mosquitoes, and no vaccine or specific treatments for the disease are currently available. If the FDA approves the submission, our goal is to provide a tool to help curtail this growing, unmet medical need.”

The FDA will now review the filing for acceptance, determine priority review eligibility and the action date which it targets to complete its evaluation. The program received FDA Fast Track and Breakthrough Therapy designations in 2018 and 2021, respectively. VLA1553 was also granted PRIority MEdicine (PRIME) designation by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) in 2020, and Valneva plans to make regulatory submissions for VLA1553 in Europe in the second half of 2023.

Chikungunya is a mosquito-borne viral disease caused by the chikungunya virus (CHIKV), a Togaviridae virus, transmitted by Aedes mosquitoes. Chikungunya virus often causes sudden large outbreaks with high attack rates, affecting one-third to three-quarters of the population in areas where the virus is circulating. There are no preventive vaccines or effective treatments available and, as such, chikungunya is considered to be a major public health threat. As of September 2020, there were more than 3 million reported cases in the Americas and the economic impact is considered to be significant. The medical and economic burden is expected to grow as the CHIKV primary mosquito vectors continue to spread geographically. Infection leads to symptomatic disease in up to 97% of humans after three to seven days following the mosquito bite. While mortality with CHIKV is low, morbidity is high. Clinical symptoms include acute onset of fever, debilitating joint and muscle pain, headache, nausea, rash and chronic arthralgia. It is estimated that over three quarters of the world’s population live in areas at-risk of CHIKV transmission. High risk areas of infection are places where chikungunya virus-carrying mosquitos are currently endemic, including the Americas, parts of Africa, and Southeast Asia.

VLA1553 is a live-attenuated, single dose investigational vaccine candidate targeting the chikungunya virus, which has spread to over 100 countries. It has been designed by deleting a part of the chikungunya virus genome. Valneva reported final data from the pivotal Phase 3 trial of VLA1553 in March 2022 and final lot-to-lot consistency results in May 2022. If approved, VLA1553 would expand Valneva’s existing commercial vaccines portfolio and as such, Valneva intends to commercialize this vaccine, leveraging its existing manufacturing and commercial operations.

To make VLA1553 more accessible to Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMIC), Valneva and Instituto Butantan in Brazil signed an agreement in January 2021 for the development, manufacturing and marketing of VLA1553. The collaboration falls within the framework of the agreement signed between CEPI and Valneva in July 2019, which provides funding of up to $23.4 million with support from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 program.

Valneva is a specialty vaccine company focused on the development and commercialization of prophylactic vaccines for infectious diseases with significant unmet medical need. The company takes a highly specialized and targeted approach to vaccine development and then applies its deep understanding of vaccine science to develop prophylactic vaccines addressing these diseases. Valneva has leveraged its expertise and capabilities both to successfully commercialize two vaccines and to rapidly advance a broad range of vaccine candidates into and through the clinic, including candidates against Lyme disease, the chikungunya virus and COVID-19.