Dive Brief:
- New data from two Phase 3 studies bolstered the efficacy profile of Pfizer's meningococcal disease vaccine Trumenba, the company announced last week.
- Both trials met their primary immunogenicity endpoints and secondary results showed a high level of Trumenba-related immune response against 10 additional invasive meningococcal strains.
- In October 2014, Trumenba became the first FDA-approved vaccine for the prevention of invasive meningococcal disease caused by Neisseria meningitidis serogroup B in adolescents and young adults.
Dive Insight:
According to the National Meningitis Association, there were five outbreaks of meningitis B on college campuses across the U.S. between 2013 and 2016. One student at the University of Oregon died as a result. Another student, who had contact with one of the infected students at Princeton, also died.
Since then, both Pfizer and Novartis have developed vaccines against meningoccocal B strains.
Pfizer beat Novartis to market with Trumenba's October 2014 approval. Novartis' Bexsero was subsequently approved in January 2015. During the outbreaks, students at Princeton and UCSB received immunization with Bexero as a protective measure.
Trumenba is administered to people between the ages of 10 and 25 in a series of three doses over a six-month period. The latest results showed that after three doses of Trumenba, immunogenicity was between 87.1% to 99.5% in the 10- to 18-year-old cohort, and 75.1% to 98.6% among the subjects in the study involving 18- to 25-year-olds.
Pfizer's vaccines business has performed well, with sales jumping 18% in the first quarter compared to a year ago. Prevnar, the company's pneumonia vaccine, has quietly become Pfizer's top-selling drug and generated $1.51 billion in global sales last quarter.