Dual Nipah–Pseudorabies Pig Vaccine Moves Into Manufacturing and Safety Phase
A new three-year programme will try to move a two-in-one pig vaccine against Nipah virus and pseudorabies beyond earlier proof-of-concept work and into the manufacturing, dose, safety and diagnostic studies needed for commercial development. The Pirbright Institute announced Duo-ProTectz on 15 October 2026, with partners in Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States.
The distinction matters: this is not a licensed product and it is not yet a farm-ready vaccine. Pirbright says the consortium expects the candidate and its companion diagnostic to enter full commercial development in 2028, if the current work succeeds. The programme is therefore best understood as a translation stage—an attempt to turn encouraging animal-health research into a manufacturable package that regulators, vaccine companies and disease-control authorities could evaluate.
What the new phase must prove
The candidate uses a live attenuated pseudorabies-virus platform already used in pig populations in Southeast Asia. Researchers have engineered that platform to express key Nipah-virus proteins, aiming to generate immunity to both pathogens in one vaccination programme. Earlier work showed protective immune responses in pigs, but immune response and experimental protection do not by themselves establish a practical commercial product.
Duo-ProTectz will scale manufacturing and define quality-control procedures, determine the minimum effective dose and dosing schedule, and run safety studies in piglets and pregnant sows. Germany’s Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut will conduct and analyse Nipah efficacy trials in the specialist containment conditions required for infected pigs.
These are commercial bottlenecks, not administrative details. A dose that works only at a high titre, a manufacturing process that varies between batches, or a safety profile that is uncertain in breeding animals can stop a promising vaccine long before licensing. The project must also show that the second-generation product retains protection against both diseases after the process is scaled.
Why the companion diagnostic is central to trade
The consortium is developing a DIVA test—short for differentiating infected from vaccinated animals—alongside the vaccine. BioStone Animal Health is responsible for an ELISA designed to distinguish naturally infected pigs from vaccinated ones.
That separation is commercially important. During an outbreak, a conventional antibody result can be difficult to interpret if vaccination and infection produce similar signals. A reliable DIVA system allows veterinary authorities to vaccinate while continuing surveillance, map infection more accurately and demonstrate disease status to trading partners. In other words, the diagnostic is part of the market-access infrastructure, not an optional add-on.
The practical test will be more demanding than simply producing an assay. Authorities and buyers will need evidence on sensitivity, specificity, repeatability and performance across different vaccination schedules and stages of infection. Pirbright says the project will assemble a data package for future regulatory engagement; it has not said that any regulator has approved the vaccine or diagnostic.
A One Health case rooted in pig production
Nipah virus is carried naturally by fruit bats and can spread to people through animals, contaminated food or person-to-person transmission. Pigs can amplify the virus. The World Health Organization’s January 2026 fact sheet reports a human case-fatality estimate of 40% to 75% and says there is no approved treatment or vaccine for Nipah infection, although several candidates are in development.
The production risk is not theoretical. The 1998–99 Malaysian outbreak was linked to pig-to-human transmission. Pirbright puts the toll at more than one million pigs culled and economic losses of about £433 million, or $582 million. Those figures describe a past outbreak, not a forecast for future losses, but they show why governments may value an animal vaccine even when the direct human-health market is uncertain.
The UK Vaccine Network lists Nipah among its priority pathogens and funds vaccine development for epidemic threats in low- and middle-income countries. It explicitly targets cases where intermittent outbreaks create weak conventional market incentives. Duo-ProTectz is funded by the UK Department of Health and Social Care through that programme; Pirbright did not disclose the new award’s value in its October 15 announcement.
What is genuinely new—and what is not
The underlying concept predates this announcement. Pirbright previously led a two-year, £1.5 million effort to develop a stable, single-shot bivalent vaccine based on an attenuated pseudorabies vector. The new development phase changes the emphasis from creating and testing a candidate to proving that it can be manufactured consistently, dosed economically, used safely in key production groups and paired with surveillance.
This also means the programme should not be confused with human vaccination. The product is being developed for pigs as a One Health intervention: suppressing infection in livestock could protect animal welfare and farm output while reducing one route of spillover to people. It would not remove risks from bat-contaminated food or human-to-human transmission, and it would not substitute for farm biosecurity, outbreak surveillance or public-health controls.
Where deployment could matter
Pirbright identifies Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, the Philippines, India and Bangladesh as priority geographies. The mix is important: some countries have large commercial pig industries, while others face recurring Nipah risk through different transmission routes. A vaccine used routinely in pigs, held for outbreak response or deployed only in selected zones would require different economics, stockpiles and surveillance systems.
The pseudorabies platform may lower adoption barriers where producers and veterinarians already understand live attenuated vaccination. But compatibility with local eradication programmes, cold-chain capacity, farm structure and national rules will still shape use. The DIVA test will be especially relevant where authorities need to preserve confidence in pig and pork trade while vaccinating.
The milestones that will decide whether this advances
The next meaningful evidence will not be another partnership announcement. It will be reproducible manufacturing data, protective efficacy at a practical dose, safety results in piglets and pregnant sows, and a validated diagnostic that performs under realistic surveillance conditions. Commercial partners and regulators will also need clarity on how a live vectored vaccine fits national pseudorabies-control policies.
If those elements align, 2028 could mark the start of a formal commercial-development route rather than a market launch. If they do not, the programme will still clarify where the candidate fails—information that matters for the wider Nipah-vaccine pipeline. For livestock producers and public-health planners, the value of Duo-ProTectz lies precisely in this difficult middle ground between laboratory promise and deployable disease control.
Sources and methodology
Agrilinkage reviewed the October 15 announcement from the Pirbright Institute, the UK Vaccine Network’s current programme description, the WHO’s January 29, 2026 Nipah fact sheet and the Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut’s project summary. Claims about expected timelines, partners and programme goals are attributed to the project; commercial availability and regulatory approval have not been assumed.
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