Table 1.
Financing of promising candidate EVD therapeutics, prior to 2013–2016 West Africa outbreak. Data courtesy of Open Society Foundation (2014, unpublished report: Overview of intellectual property claims and public research support for candidate Ebola vaccines and therapies). CRADA: Cooperative Research and Development Agreement; US: United States of America; DTRA: Defense Threat Reduction Agency, US; USAMRIID: The United States Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases; NIAID: National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, US; DOD: Department of Defense; NIH: National Institute of Health, US; BARDA: Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, US; CMV, cytomegalovirus.
| disbursed or committed public funding |
|||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| candidate drug | initial target | year of first patent filing | amount (USD) | source | pipeline development at outbreak start |
| brincidofovir | smallpox and DNA viruses (CMV) | 2004 | 36.1 million | US NIH [8] |
other applications: smallpox—unknown EVD: none |
| CRADA, value unknown | USAMRIID | ||||
| 53 million | BARDA | ||||
| 5 million | NIH | ||||
| favipiravir | influenza | 1998 | 138.5 million | DTRA |
other applications: pandemic influenza—licenced for stockpiling (Japan) [9] EVD: 100% survival in mouse model [10] |
| TKM-Ebola | target specific to EVD, but delivered using technology applicable to other diseases | 2005 | 44 million | US DOD |
other applications: n.a. EVD: 100% survival in non-human primate model [11] |
| 26 million as part of a consortium | NIH | ||||
| BCX4430 | hepatitis C, yellow fever | 2005a | 20 million | NIAID |
other applications: yellow fever—100% survival in hamster model [12]. EVD: none |
| AVI-7537 | target specific to EVD, closely related to precursor drug for Marburg disease | 2010 | 28 million | DTRA |
other applications: close relative in phase I trials for Marburg virus [13] EVD: support terminated by US Government [14] |
| 11 million | US defense appropriations earmark | ||||
| <80 million | US DOD | ||||
| JK-05 | unknown; ‘a biodefence drug’ | 2010b | unknown | Peoples Liberation Army, China |
other applications: unknown EVD: unknown, no human trials |
| ZMapp (and precursors ZMab and MB-003) | EVD | 2008 | 189 000 | US army |
other applications: n.a. EVD: 100% survival in non-human primate model [15] |
| 24.9 million | NIAID | ||||
| 5.2 million | DTRA | ||||
| 2.6 million | DTRA | ||||
| CRADA, amount unknown [16] | Public Health Canada | ||||
aWith some uncertainty (multiple components).
bWith some uncertainty (insufficient information available).