Aiming to accelerate research on groundbreaking oral mRNA vaccine platform
[San Francisco/California] — Esperovax, a leading developer of oral mRNA vaccines, announced it has been selected as a BLUE KNIGHT™ company.
Blue Knight is a joint initiative between Johnson & Johnson Innovation – JLABS and the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), part of the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and is dedicated to anticipating potential health security threats, activating the global innovation community, and amplifying scientific and technological advancements with the aim to prepare for and respond to a rapidly evolving global health environment. Esperovax will extend its lab operations to the JLABS global innovation network incubator in San Francisco and will benefit from continuing engagement with JLABS and BARDA.
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 population of immune cells in the gastrointestinal tract via a small oral capsule. The company’s proprietary platform enables a broad suite of oral vaccines that are safe, elicit robust immunity, remain stable at room temperature and can be produced at markedly lower cost than traditional vaccines. Esperovax has three pending patents and was awarded a 2020 BARDA contract supporting the development of an oral mRNA CoV19 vaccine as part of BARDA DRIVe’s Beyond the Needle program. The company’s offices and laboratories are currently located in Plymouth, Michigan.
“Being invited into the Blue Knight community is an exciting next step for us as we work towards bringing our novel oral mRNA vaccine platform forward,” said David O’Hagan, Esperovax’s Chief Executive Officer. “We remain dedicated to bringing oral tablet and capsule vaccinations to the world to protect against mankind’s deadliest and most troublesome diseases –– and to do so with the greatest efficacy, efficiency, and safety.”
Esperovax utilizes common baker’s yeast which it modifies using its proprietary technology to enable the yeast cells to secrete lipid mRNA particles in the GI tract. The technology offers the potential for enabling the production of billions of doses of vaccines in a fraction of the time required by current processes. Esperovax has retained all rights to its mRNA CoV19 vaccine and its Egress RD™ oral mRNA platform.
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