The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) has approved progression of a $US 4.8 million ($7.2 million) program involving Vaxxas — a Brisbane-based, clinical-stage company developing a needle vaccine delivery platform — and an mRNA Japanese encephalitis vaccine (JEV) from SK bioscience.
According to a statement from Vaxxas on Thursday, the program is to develop heat-stable, dried-formulation mRNA vaccines delivered using Vaxxas’s high-density microarray (HD-MAP) patch.
It will advance a combination of mRNA vaccine against JEV and Vaxxas’ HD-MAP (pictured) towards a Phase I clinical study.
Vaxxas said preclinical work, “including expression of a seasonal influenza antigen that demonstrated dose-dependent immunogenicity of mRNA in lipid nanoparticles” (LNPs) had been promising. It demonstrated that mRNA-LNPs had the potential to maintain stability at 2–8 degrees Celsius and 25 degrees Celsius for at least 12 months, and at 40 degrees Celsius for at least one month.
“With compelling proof-of-concept results in hand, we’re excited to have CEPI’s commitment to advance to the next stage of development,” said Vaxxas CEO David Hoey.
“We’re equally excited to be working with SK bioscience and its JEV mRNA vaccine on this program to realise the potential of our HD-MAP technology and move the world closer to a commercially available, thermostable patch-based mRNA vaccine.”
Vaxxas was established in 2011 and based on research conducted at University of Queensland.
CEPI is a multinational public/private/philanthropic/civil consortium, established in 2017 and headquartered in Oslo, aiming to accelerate development of vaccines and other biologic solutions against epidemic and pandemic threats.
The news follows an announcement last week of $US 2 million funding to Vaxxas from the US Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) to progress HD-MAP for administration of a COVID-19 mRNA vaccine. The funding was through BARDA’s Patch Forward Prize.
Picture: supplied
Further reading
Manufacturing news briefs — stories you might have missed
Vaxxas licenses RSV vaccine candidate