Gates gives $27.8 million to study rollout of HPV vaccines in developing world

As Reuters and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer are reporting today, the Gates Foundation has awarded $27.8 million for HPV implementation research to PATH, a Seattle-based non-profit and frequent recipient of Gates funding. (In April, PATH received $75 million from Gates for research on next-generation pneumonia vaccines, as we discussed here.)

This project is intended to determine the best approach for introducing HPV vaccines to developing countries. Initially, PATH will conduct pilot studies in India, Peru, Uganda, and Vietnam. As the PATH press release describes, both Merck and GSK are onboard with this program, pledging to provide their vaccines (once licensed) to the research initiatives. Dr. Regina Rabinovich, director of infectious diseases at the Gates Foundation, describes PATH's objective this way:

"PATH will help determine how to deliver these vaccines in developing countries, where systems to reach young women with health services are fragile, and cervical cancer may not be seen as a problem because so few women are screened."

There's no doubt that HPV vaccines would prevent far more cervical cancer deaths in developing countries than in the developed world, yet its projected cost and a host of implementation challenges mean that those populations needing the vaccine most will likely be among the last to receive it. Ultimately, finding a way to reduce dramatically (or underwrite) the vaccine's cost will be the greatest obstacle to HPV vaccines' global availability, but today's news is, by any estimation, a positive step toward that goal.