British drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline will seek marketing approval for the world's first malaria vaccine next year after trial data showed the shot significantly cut cases of the disease in African children.
The vaccine known as RTS,S was found, after 18 months of follow-up, to have almost halved the number of malaria cases in young children in the trial, and to have reduced by around a quarter the number of malaria cases in infants.
"Based on these data, GSK now intends to submit, in 2014, a regulatory application to the European Medicines Agency (EMA)," GSK, which has been developing the vaccine for three decades, said in a statement.