Initiative to enable continuous oral vaccine and therapeutics manufacturing for diseases worldwide
ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Esperovax, a leading developer of oral vaccines, today announced it has signed a new, exclusive licensing agreement with Innovation Partners at the University of Michigan to produce vaccines and therapeutics using a novel yeast-based manufacturing method. This next-generation manufacturing technology will accelerate current programs to the clinic by allowing for a continuous purification process. In turn, such vaccines can be purified and produced with higher yields at optimal cost.
“Yeast-based oral vaccine using virus-like particles (VLPs) has recently demonstrated clinical safety and immunological response that serve as a proof-of-concept for the oral administration of VLP-based vaccines,” said David O’Hagan, Esperovax’s Chief Executive Officer. He continued, “The IP we have in-licensed from one of the world’s leading research institutions allows us to produce and purify the VLPs with an optimized strategy paving the way for higher yields. With this new approach, we aim to fine-tune our platform and manufacture vaccines and therapeutics with superior efficacy on a global scale.”
“We are thrilled to partner with Esperovax, as they are in a great position to capitalize on this patented technology which is optimally synergistic with their own for the production of oral vaccines and therapeutics,” said Stefan Koehler from the University of Michigan.
The signing of this agreement also provides the University of Michigan the right to invest in Esperovax, including in the company’s currently planned capital raise, as well as in future rounds.
More on 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 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 and therapeutics that are safe, elicit robust immunity, remain stable at room temperature and can be produced at markedly lower cost than traditional vaccines.
Selected as a BLUE KNIGHT™ company earlier this year, Esperovax has three
pending patents. In 2020 the company 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.
