New malaria vaccine shortlisted for European Inventor Award 2026

Developing a highly effective malaria vaccine: Irish-British researcher selected as a finalist for the European Inventor Award 2026
Sir Adrian Hill and his team developed a malaria vaccine that achieved around 75–80% protection in trials, exceeding the WHO efficacy target
The vaccine is designed for large-scale, low-cost use in countries most affected by malaria
The Irish-British researcher is a finalist in the 'Research' category. The winners will be announced during the Award ceremony on 2 July 2026 in Berlin
Public voting for the Popular Prize opens today and will be running until the ceremony on 2 July 2026
Malaria vaccine shortlisted for European Inventor Award
Malaria remains one of the world's deadliest infectious diseases. According to the World Health Organization, an estimated 282 million malaria cases and 610 000 deaths were recorded globally in 2024, with children under five accounting for around three-quarters of all deaths in the WHO Africa Region. After decades of limited progress in vaccine development, Sir Adrian Hill and his team developed a highly effective malaria vaccine that has now been recommended by the WHO for widespread use. For this work, Hill has been selected as a finalist in the 'Research' category of the European Inventor Award 2026 by an independent jury.
Improving protection against a complex parasite
Developing a malaria vaccine has long been considered one of the toughest challenges in medicine. The malaria parasite is genetically complex and passes through multiple life-cycle stages in the human body, making it difficult for the immune system to recognise and block infection. Earlier vaccine candidates, including the first licensed malaria vaccine, achieved only modest and short-lived protection in young children.
Sir Adrian and his team addressed a key design limitation by increasing the amount and density of malaria-specific protein presented to the immune system, while removing components that could weaken the immune response. The resulting vaccine, known as R21/Matrix-M, forms tiny nanoparticles that closely resemble the size of common viruses, a scale to which the human immune system responds particularly strongly. When combined with the Matrix-M adjuvant, the vaccine generates substantially higher antibody levels than earlier approaches.
"When I was working in The Gambia in the late 1980s, I saw children dying from malaria right in front of me. That experience stayed with me and convinced me that we needed something better than what was available…For most of the last two decades, half a million children were dying every year from malaria, almost all in Africa. Once you've seen that, it's impossible not to want to do something about it," said Sir Adrian.
From long-term research to real-world deployment
The R21 vaccine is the result of more than thirty years of sustained research at the Jenner Institute at the University of Oxford. Sir Adrian's work was shaped early on by clinical experience in malaria-endemic regions and supported by long-term public and charitable funding, allowing repeated iteration in an academic setting before large-scale manufacturing partnerships were established.
A decisive breakthrough came when Phase 2b trials reported up to 77% efficacy in 2021, exceeding the WHO's target for malaria vaccines. The vaccine was subsequently co-developed with the Serum Institute of India to enable production at scale and at low cost, making it suitable for routine immunisation programmes in low-income settings.
"I realised the world didn't need more descriptions of how complicated the malaria parasite is and how cleverly it has evaded our immune system for millions of years. What we really needed was a way to prevent it, and a vaccine seemed the obvious route. That's what pushed me toward research. The opportunity to create something that could have a real impact on huge numbers of people has always driven me," said Sir Adrian.
Following regulatory approvals in African countr...