Joseph Joyce, Merck to Speak at Vaccines Meeting on July 9-11, 2014, in Boston

Monrovia, CA, May 11, 2014 --(PR.com)-- Joseph G. Joyce, Director of Vaccine Process Development at Merck Research Laboratories will give a presentation on “Development and Immunogenicity of a 15-Valent Polysaccharide-Protein Conjugate Vaccine for Prevention of Invasive Pneumococcal Disease” at the 12th Vaccines Research & Development: All Things Considered Conference on July 9-11, 2014, in Boston, MA by GTCBio.

Infection with Streptococcus pneumonia leading to invasive pneumococcal disease (IPD) is a major cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Type-specific capsular polysaccharide (PS) vaccines which elicit opsonophagocytic antibody responses are known to protect against IPD, but immunization with PS alone generally fails to elicit protective responses in young children who bear a large portion of disease burden. In contrast, a number of pneumococcal conjugate vaccines (PCV) in which PS is covalently coupled to an immunogenic carrier protein have shown efficacy in this population. Merck has developed a 15-valent PCV (V114) containing PS serotypes 1, 3, 4, 5, 6A, 6B, 7F, 9V, 14, 18C, 19A, 19F, 22F, 23F and 33F conjugated to the protein carrier CRM197. Dr. Joyce’s presentation will cover pre-clinical development and assessment and clinical testing of V114 and will present select examples of innovative ways in which characterization of complex multi-component vaccines can be addressed.

Joseph G. Joyce, Ph.D. is the Director of Downstream Vaccine Process Development at Merck Research Laboratories in West Point, PA. Dr. Joyce joined Merck in 1989 working as a protein biochemist and completed his Ph.D. in Biochemistry in 1998. During his tenure at Merck, Dr. Joyce worked on multiple microbial and viral vaccine programs encompassing a wide variety of vaccine modalities. Important highlights include Recombivax® for hepatitis B, and Gardasil® for human papillomavirus infection, where he played a key development role in establishing purification and characterization protocols for HPV virus-like particles produced in yeast. Dr. Joyce led a centralized group responsible for antigen identification, production, and characterization within the discovery research space for 10 years prior to assuming his current role in preclinical development in late 2013. Projects which he currently has responsibility for include investigational pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (V114) and cytomegalovirus vaccine (V160), both of which are in clinical trials and contributions to life cycle management for Merck’s varicella vaccine franchise. Additional vaccine programs for which Dr. Joyce and his group contributed include HIV-1, Clostridium difficile, Dengue, malaria, and Chlamydia trachomatis.

GTCBio’s annual Vaccines Conference continues a tradition of presenting valuable updates and exposure to all aspects of vaccine development in a comfortable, interactive and friendly setting with leaders in vaccinology from industry, academia, and the government. We bring together the people who make the discoveries, make the decisions, fund the work and license the vaccines and foster their interaction with the attendees to share their perspectives of the vaccine industry.

This conference is also part of the Infectious Diseases World Summit 2014, which consists of this and two other conferences:
1) 3rd Annual Influenza Research and Development Conference
2) 11th Anti-Infectives Partnering and Deal-Making Conference

For more information, please visit www.gtcbio.com