During an interview, Dr. Marc Siegel discussed the surge in estimated cases of Lyme disease in the United States and how Pfizer is developing a new vaccine for the illness.
Siegel noted that Pfizer’s Lyme disease vaccine should be available “in a few months.” He explained that the vaccine is “a completely safe” vaccine based on older technology, and predicted it would be widely adopted. Siegel described the vaccine as “very promising” and “going to be useful,” stating: “Last time we had a Lyme vaccine, nobody took it. This vaccine is safe and effective. I think we’re going to get a lot of use out of it.”
Pfizer announced on Monday that it will seek regulatory approval for a Lyme disease vaccine candidate despite the shot failing to meet statistical goals in a late-stage trial. The company reported that the vaccine reduced the rate of infection by more than 70% compared to placebo, an efficacy level they believe is strong enough to present to regulators.
Pfizer Chief Vaccines Officer Annaliesa Anderson described the efficacy shown in the VALOR study as “highly encouraging” and confident in the vaccine’s potential to protect against Lyme disease, which can be debilitating.
The new vaccine candidate is not expected to become a best-seller for Pfizer, with Valneva estimating peak annual sales of $1 billion. Pfizer projects overall revenue of around $60 billion this year, with its Covid-19 vaccine representing more than $5 billion of that forecast.
Former Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene commented: “I don’t want any more safe and effective vaccines. I want them to stop engineering ticks and viruses as bio weapons.”
Last month, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced a major federal push to fight Lyme disease and other tick-borne illnesses. In remarks during the announcement, RFK Jr. stated: “One of the real tragedies now is that Americans can’t go into the woods anymore safely—going to the woods to hike, fish, hunt, photograph, or just walk in the woods is part of the seminal experience of being an American, and particularly an American child—and it’s a science fiction nightmare that we now live in.” He also noted: “We didn’t really have a tick problem in this country until the 1980s,” adding that efforts are underway to reduce tick populations and disrupt their breeding cycles.
RFK Jr. emphasized that May is Lyme Disease Awareness Month, with Lyme disease affecting an estimated 476,000 Americans annually and being one of the most common vector-borne diseases in the U.S. He also reported that he recently wrote to the House Energy & Commerce Committee urging support for reauthorization of the Kay Hagan Tick Act.
The last Lyme vaccine, LYMErix, debuted in 1998 but was discontinued after four years due to low sales driven by concerns about potential adverse effects. It was said to reduce new infections in vaccinated adults by nearly 80 percent, according to an editorial review published by the Cambridge University Press.
Lyme disease is transmitted to hundreds of thousands of people each year by blacklegged ticks. Infected ticks must be attached for more than 24 hours to transmit infection; prompt tick removal can prevent transmission, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The illness is typically contracted during outdoor activities and treated with a 10- to 14-day course of oral antibiotics.