The European Commission (EC) recently authorized the marketing of LETIFEND®

LETIFEND® was developed by Laboratórios LETI (Spain) and counted with the strong collaboration of iBET and GeniBET in early stage process development and manufacture.

LETIFEND® is an innovative vaccine against canine leishmaniasis, a serious disease caused by infection with the parasite Leishmania infantum (L. infantum).

Leishmaniasis due to L.infantum is a potentially lethal and prevalent in the Mediterranean area overall zoonosis. The infected dog, besides running the risk of disease, is the main reservoir, where the parasite lives and breeds, and from where it is transmitted to other dogs and to people by the bite of the sand fly, which acts as a vector.

This new vaccine, which will be available to veterinarians in Europe, is a recombinant protein, constructed from the merger of five fragments of four proteins of L. infantum parasite with antigenicity. LETIFEND is the first vaccine against Leishmaniosis developed in Europe with a chimeric protein and provide veterinarians a fully safe, besides effective tool for immunizing dogs uninfected from six months old, in order to reduce the risk that after exposure to L. infantum develop an active infection, clinical disease or both.

The marketing authorization by the EC validates the robustness of studies on the safety and efficacy of this vaccine LETI made for years in Europe. Laboratorios LETI is the first company that has developed a vaccine against canine leishmaniasis in Spain, the second in Europe and fourth in the world.

Jaime Grego, company president, said that "approval of LETIFEND® is important because, in addition to preventing the disease being totally sure about side effects, by not including adjuvant, is a fundamental step towards the development of the vaccine human leishmaniasis, a project of high priority for LETI in which takes about twenty-five years researching the collaboration of several centers, national and international, which has coalesced. Leishmaniasis is one of the Neglected Diseases according to the World Health Organization, is present in over 80 countries worldwide and has few treatment options. "