Adjuvance
A Semi-Synthetic Best-in-Class Vaccine Adjuvant
Shingles is a painful disease that is estimated to afflict 1 in 3 adults over their lifetime. GSK has developed Shingrix into a $2b+ vaccine franchise, but its superior activity comes from the QS21 adjuvant, which is in extremely short supply due to its natural origin.
Adjuvance has developed a semi-synthetic process for mass-producing a superior version of QS21; this adjuvant is expected to enhance vaccines where efficacy is less than optimal.
ClearB Therapeutics
A Functional Cure for Hepatitis B
There are an estimated 250 million chronic carriers of Hepatitis B virus worldwide. Patients with this infection are at risk for liver cirrhosis, cancer, and death. However, a small subset of patients clear the infection spontaneously. ClearB analyzed the antibody repertoire of these patients and discovered epitopes that are strongly correlated with functional cure.
The company is developing a vaccine that would deliver these antigenic epitopes to non-cleared patients in order to stimulate a viral clearance like that seen in elite responders.
GreenLight Bio
Scalable mRNA Vaccines
Production of quality RNA for vaccines and antibodies has historically been an issue to unlocking its potential to control the synthesis of proteins. Creating quality RNA is expensive and time consuming, making production difficult to scale.
Greenlight’s mRNA biomanufacturing platform aims to create quality mRNA quickly. An end-to-end, self-contained process enables cost-efficient production of mRNA vaccines and antibody therapies when compared to traditional production processes. Greenlight is developing vaccines for flu and Covid-19 using their scalable platform.
Matrivax
A Universal Pneumococcal Vaccine
Matrivax is developing a protein-based pneumococcal vaccine that has the potential to cover all S. pneumoniae serotypes, providing broader protection than Prevnar, a $7b/year vaccine franchise that costs over $120 per shot.
An affordable, universal S. pneumoniae vaccine represents a large opportunity for broadening vaccination coverage at lower costs to healthcare payers.
Meissa Vaccines
A First-in-Class Vaccine for RSV
Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) is responsible for 160,000 deaths annually, along with over 3.4m infant hospitalizations. Efforts to develop a safe vaccine have failed since 1966, when a formalin-fixed vaccine resulted in enhanced disease and 2 infant deaths.
Meissa is developing a genetically attenuated viral vaccine with no possibility of reverting to a species that can cause disease; it has entered Phase 1 clinical trials and has experienced no adverse safety signal.
MeVox
Falling coverage, waning immunity, and non-vaccine genotypes have led to a resurgence in mumps and measles cases worldwide. The current MMR shot is a live viral vaccine, and thus performs poorly as a booster shot. MeVox is developing a stabilized measles and mumps booster shot that locks antigens in their most immunogenic conformations, eliciting a robust response from a durable booster shot.
VaxEquity
Delivering on the Potential of Self-Amplifying RNA
VaxEquity is developing transformative RNA vaccines and therapeutics based on its next generation self-amplifying RNA (saRNA) platform originating from Imperial College London. The proprietary, flexible platform enables the simultaneous expression of a broad range of targets and immunomodulatory proteins that can be rapidly produced and delivered at scale.