Lipoxen enters vaccine development agreement

Collaboration agreement

Lipoxen Ltd, a spin-out from the School of Pharmacy at the University of London, UK, says it has entered into a research agreement with Cambridge Biostability Limited, the University of Cambridge and the UK’s Health Protection Agency to develop a novel vaccine technology, which will achieve greater efficacy and eliminate the need for “cold-chain” distribution.

The need to distribute vaccines at low temperatures from manufacturing plant to patient (the “cold chain”) is one of the major reasons that very few people in the developing world are able to receive the modern vaccines they desperately need. According to the World Health Organization, infectious diseases kill at least 15 million people a year and this initiative could contribute to significantly reducing this number. The project is receiving funding from the Department for Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform.

The parties will be working to create vaccine materials that are more stable, have a long shelf-life, require fewer doses in order to be effective and overcome the cold-chain storage and distribution problem associated with traditional vaccines. Vaccines with these novel attributes would represent a major advance, particularly for people in the developing world who are unnecessarily dying from diseases that can be prevented through more efficient delivery and storage of vaccinations.

The programme uses  Lipoxen’s liposomal “Co-Delivery” technology, which combines DNA and protein forms of an antigen in liposomes, to generate a strong immune response after a single dose together with Cambridge Biostability’s VitRIS technology, which generates formulations that can withstand both high temparatues and accidental freezing. The project will also assess the application of the VitRIS technology and develop a suitable manufacturing process for slow-release vaccines based on antigens supplied by the HPA.

The vaccine formulations developed as a result of this project are expected to have several advantages over conventional vaccines. These include the ability to be stockpiled for long periods and to be more efficacious than existing vaccines. This may allow lower doses to be administered, allowing much smaller supplies of modern vaccines (for example, of pandemic vaccine) to be used to protect much greater numbers of people at risk in the event of a pandemic.

M. Scott Maguire, CEO of Lipoxen, said: “We are excited to be entering into this unique first-class partnership and pooling our resources and expertise with Cambridge Biostability, Cambridge University and the HPA.…I believe that this consortium is well-positioned to develop the next generation of vaccines which will be of immense benefit for the developing world vaccination programmes. There is little doubt that significant improvements in public health and life expectancy could be achieved if modern vaccines could be delivered to a much greater proportion of the developing world's population.”