STICHTING TUBERCULOSIS VACCINE INITIATIVE

Their core work

TBVI is a Dutch nonprofit foundation dedicated exclusively to accelerating the development of new tuberculosis vaccines. They operate as a coordinating hub for international TB vaccine research, managing consortia that move vaccine candidates from early discovery through preclinical and into early clinical stages. Beyond traditional wet-lab pipeline coordination, they have expanded into computational approaches — supporting in silico clinical trials that use agent-based and Bayesian statistical modeling to simulate vaccine efficacy before costly human trials. Their value lies not in performing bench science themselves, but in organizing, funding, and connecting the global research community around TB vaccine gaps that commercial pharma ignores.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

In their first H2020 project (2015–2019), TBVI's work centered on conventional vaccine development pipelines — moving candidates through discovery, preclinical testing, and early clinical phases under the TBVAC2020 consortium they coordinated. The absence of computational keywords in that period suggests a predominantly biological and translational research focus. By 2018–2023, their involvement in STriTuVaD marks a clear methodological expansion: in silico trials, agent-based modeling, and Bayesian statistics entered their portfolio, reflecting a broader sector shift toward computational tools that reduce trial costs and timelines.

TBVI is moving toward computational and modeling methods to complement wet-lab vaccine development, suggesting future collaborations may span both infectious disease biology and biomedical informatics or systems pharmacology.

How they like to work

TBVI has demonstrated both leadership and partnership capacity: they coordinated the large TBVAC2020 consortium (suggesting strong project management and scientific credibility) while also participating as a focused contributor in the computationally intensive STriTuVaD project. Their 53 unique consortium partners across 15 countries in just two projects indicates a very broad and active network rather than a closed circle of recurring collaborators. Working with TBVI likely means access to a pre-existing web of TB research institutions, clinical partners, and modeling experts.

TBVI has collaborated with 53 unique partners across 15 countries — an unusually dense network for an organization with only two recorded projects, reflecting their role as a central node in the global TB vaccine research community. Their network spans European academic and clinical institutions and likely extends to low- and middle-income countries where TB burden is highest.

What sets them apart

TBVI occupies a rare niche as a nonprofit foundation whose entire mandate is tuberculosis vaccine development — not a department within a university or a commercial spinout, but an organization built specifically to fill the coordination gap that market forces leave in neglected disease vaccine research. This singular focus gives them unmatched credibility and network density within the TB vaccine field, making them a natural anchor partner for any European consortium addressing infectious disease or global health. For a scientist or company entering this space, TBVI brings ready-made relationships, institutional knowledge of the TB vaccine landscape, and experience navigating both preclinical and computational trial methodologies.

Highlights from their portfolio

• TBVAC2020
  Coordinated by TBVI with €2.47M in EC funding, this was one of the flagship European efforts to advance multiple TB vaccine candidates simultaneously from discovery through early clinical development — a rare end-to-end pipeline project in a neglected disease area.
• STriTuVaD
  Represents TBVI's methodological expansion into in silico clinical trials, applying agent-based and Bayesian statistical modeling to TB vaccine development — an early example of computational simulation replacing or preceding traditional trial phases in infectious disease.