Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited and Frazier Healthcare Partners have collaborated to launch HilleVax, Inc. (HilleVax), a biopharmaceutical company to develop and commercialise Takeda’s norovirus vaccine candidate. Takeda has granted a licence to HilleVax for the exclusive development and commercialisation rights to its norovirus vaccine candidate, HIL-214 (formerly TAK-214), worldwide outside of Japan, the company said in a statement.

It added that Takeda will retain commercialisation rights in Japan and HilleVax will integrate certain Japan development activities into its global development. This collaboration allows Takeda to focus primarily on dengue, COVID-19 pandemic influenza and zika.

HIL-214, which is a virus-like particle (VLP)-based vaccine candidate, completed a randomised, placebo-controlled phase 2b field efficacy study in 4,712 adult subjects in which HIL-214 was well-tolerated and demonstrated clinical proof of concept in preventing moderate-to-severe cases of acute gastroenteritis from norovirus infection. To date, the candidate has been studied in nine human clinical trials with safety data from over 4,500 subjects and immunogenicity data from over 2,000 subjects, mentioned the statement.

Speaking in this regard, Simon Gallagher, Interim General Manager, Takeda India, commented, “With a third of the global population in India, there is a higher level of risk to people from viruses and infectious diseases. Today, there is sufficient proof and data that vaccinations have contributed to a decrease in infectious diseases and associated mortality rates. This partnership announcement between Takeda and Frazier Healthcare Partners will allow Takeda to continue developing treatments for high-risk and high-burden diseases prevalent in India, such as dengue and Zika virus, while alleviating some of the immense pressures on public healthcare institutions across the country due to the ongoing COVID-19 global pandemic.”