Infrastructure for innovation with AAHI’s Candice Decaire

Our next interview from our time at the Congress in Washington is a conversation with AAHI’s Candice Decaire, who joined us at the event for a session in the Vaccine Partnerships track, covering “Vaccine innovation: the path to global health resilience”. As Chief Strategy Officer and General Counsel of the Access to Advanced Health Institute (AAHI), Candice protects AAHI’s legal and intellectual property rights, informs strategy, supports partnerships, and ensures that licenses and other commercial relationships are “consistent” with the mission. It’s wonderful to hear that Candice has an “absolutely great job”, supporting and learning about “cutting-edge science”, and advancing AAHI’s mission:

“To get immune stimulating technologies out into the world and to make them available to underserved populations.”

It’s great to hear Candice’s insights and we hope that you enjoy the interview!

The path to global health resilience

We first consider Candice’s session and ask her to outline any key themes or concerns that she was expecting to come up. She mentions a proposal, spearheaded by AAHI, which you can learn a bit about here, which calls for the establishment of a government-funded network of centres of excellence in vaccine innovation and development.

“The goal of the core network is to come up with a toolbox, as it were, of optimised vaccine technologies, vaccine components, even specific vaccine candidates, that can be made practically accessible.”

These technologies would be “poised and ready” for a new infectious disease threat.

Candice emphasises a “critical aspect” of the collaborative network: “sophisticated formulations technology”, and explains the importance of including adjuvants.

“Adjuvants not only enable broad, durable, robust vaccines, but they are uniquely useful to focusing and directing the immune response. They also help to make vaccine available to vulnerable populations.”

The idea of access is “absolutely fundamental” to the proposal.

“We want to bake practical access into the vaccine innovation and development process.”

This includes sustainable sourcing, thermostable technologies, and simple, scalable manufacturing processes.

The proposal

The proposal (linked at the bottom of this article) acknowledges the importance of addressing “both known and unknown” threats, and suggests that a “sustainable infrastructure that supports accelerated invention and development” can achieve this goal. Thus, the proposers call for the establishment and funding of a network of six Centres of Excellence (CoEs).

“The network of CoEs will create a library of safe and effective vaccine candidates and critical vaccine adjuvants validated through Phase I clinical trials, while simultaneously working with commercial partners to ensure rapid scalability.”

The “ask” is for annual funding of $20 million to each CoE, to “establish vaccine platforms for building broad, durable, robust vaccines that are easily administered and ready for commercial scale manufacture”.

Next steps for the proposal

The proposal was a subject of great interest for many at the Congress, so what are the next steps for implementation? Candice refers to supporting and advocating partners, but reflects on the importance of “sustainable, year-over-year funding”.

“We seek input from the experts in the field.”

Candice also states that the idea is “more broadly applicable than just those core institutions”. For example, each institution might have a host of partnerships and collaborations.

Why WVC?

Finally, we ask Candice about her expectations for the event. She emphasises that the panel and proposal are key reasons, with the ambition of getting the idea out there to “get input, to receive suggestions” or participation. From a personal perspective, she shares that she joined us to “make connections” and to “learn as much as I possibly can”!

“There are so many people doing so many exciting things, and it’s fantastic to be here to learn about that.”

We’re very grateful to Candice for making time to join us and encourage you to check out her team’s website for more information here.

 

 

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