CQ HealthBeat: NIH Pushes Back on Zika Vaccine Conflict Allegation
“The government’s premier medical research agency is refuting allegations that its choice to help bring a Zika vaccine to market was a conflict of interest. … In October, [NIH] announced that it was planning to grant an exclusive license to California-based PaxVax, Inc., a small pharmaceutical company that specializes in vaccines, to further develop the product and eventually bring it to market. But Ken Kelley, the founder and former chief executive of PaxVax, is currently an adviser in the vaccine research center at the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the NIH division that has been researching the Zika vaccine…” (Siddons, 11/15).