TherVacB – New Concept to Fight Chronic Hepatitis B

A Therapeutic Vaccine to Cure Hepatitis B

TherVacB provides a novel and affordable, curative treatment option for chronic hepatitis B. Worldwide, 880,000 humans die each year from the consequences of an infection with the hepatitis B virus (HBV). A prophylactic vaccine is available to prevent HBV infection, but more than 3% of the world’s population (about 260 million humans) are chronically infected and do not profit from that vaccine anymore. For those living with chronic hepatitis B, no curative treatment option exists until today.
The TherVacB consortium around its co-ordinator at Helmholtz Munich, Prof. Ulrike Protzer, is on a mission to establish a therapeutic hepatitis B vaccine for an HBV cure in routine clinical use. In this project, leading virologists, immunologists and physicians specialised in treating viral hepatitis jointly tackle the major challenges in HBV therapy – the virus’s resistance to cure. To break immune tolerance in chronic infection and cure HBV, the project team will employ the newly designed therapeutic vaccine “TherVacB” as an immunotherapy. “TherVacB” will be evaluated in a clinical trial with hepatitis B patients conducted in Europe and in Africa.
In addition to this, ethics of social media patient recruitment into clinical research have been explored in detail as potential means to reach patient groups at need but not in regular medical care yet. Moreover, the “European Registry for Patients with Chronic Hepatitis B” set up by the TherVacB project helps to select patients fulfilling the criteria for inclusion into the TherVacB clinical trial and other trials aiming at HBV cure. Long-term, the integration of a clinical partner site in Tanzania shall help building local capacities for diagnosing and treating hepatitis B. This will be supported by expansion of the HBV Patient Registry to Tanzania, where patients will have an option to receive treatment for hepatitis B for the first time. The prospect of a potential cure of chronic hepatitis B virus infections raises hopes of affected people for sustained health and a stop of being stigmatised – largely increasing the quality of life.
At TherVacB, we are listening to the needs of the global community of people living with hepatitis B. Driven by ARTTIC Innovation and Helmholtz Munich, we work to raise awareness and to share project news and results in seven languages. TherVacB’s curative treatment approach, the established prophylactic vaccination and hepatitis B screening programmes will be instrumental to meeting the United Nations and WHO’s Sustainable Development Goal 3.3 to combat hepatitis B and D viral infection worldwide by 2030.