Identifying the gaps in human and veterinary chlamydia vaccine development

Background: Chlamydia infections in humans and animals pose a significant burden on health systems worldwide. While widespread screening, adequate treatment, and prevention programs are helpful to increase awareness and
improve screening rates, infection rates are rising. A vaccine is necessary to slow increasing rates, manage negative consequences, and prevent possible antibiotic resistance. We present the current landscape regarding the innovations for commercial vaccine development in a “one-health” context.

Methods: We developed a unique dataset containing data of patent documents intended for human and veterinary use, and clinical trials in order to provide a detailed description of the global chlamydia vaccine developments.

Results: Analysis of patents and clinical trials intended for human use presented a vaccine field that is underdeveloped, with no commercial human chlamydia vaccine available, and two potential candidates in a phase 1 clinical trial.
Comparing innovations concerning chlamydia vaccine developments for both human and veterinary patents, it was clear that these fields are very different and independent of each other. The field is small, and certain companies and researchers show repeated interest. Partnerships among applicants and those involved in chlamydia vaccine innovation would be an important step to take towards innovating and developing an effective vaccine.

Conclusions: We have shown that North America is considered, by patent application, to hold the most potential for a chlamydia vaccine, specifically against the Chlamydia trachomatis strain. A new vaccine is likely to be a subunit
vaccine with components of the major outer membrane protein antigen.