Esperovax, a U.S.-based preclinical biopharmaceutical company and a BLUE KNIGHT™ resident company, is receiving an award for $ 1 M to further develop a yeast-based oral COVID-19 RNA vaccine candidate as part of the BLUE KNIGHT™ QuickFire Challenge: Accelerating Project NextGen. This award will support critical studies aimed at demonstrating vaccine safety and immunoprotection in orally vaccinated animals challenged with different COVID-19 virus variants. Esperovax is collaborating with Dr. Slobodan Paessler at the University of Texas Medical Branch – Galveston to conduct these studies.
Blue Knight, a joint initiative between Johnson & Johnson Innovation – JLABS (JLABS) and the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), collaborates with companies to accelerate innovation against emerging health security threats.
“This award enables animal challenge studies that may determine whether our unique oral COVID-19 RNA vaccine elicits protective immunity that prevents disease and reduces virus dissemination and affords completion of other requisite studies supportive of an Investigational New Drug application for future clinical evaluation,” stated Dr. Robin Robinson, President and Chief Executive Officer. “Positive results from these studies have the potential to bring inexpensive, safe and long-lasting effective oral vaccines a step closer to address public health threats like COVID-19 and other emerging infectious diseases.”
About Esperovax: Esperovax was founded in 2019 to advance development of its Egress RD™ oral mRNA platform, a transformative technology for delivering mRNA vaccines to the abundant populations of immune cells in the gastrointestinal tract via a small oral capsule.
