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news.US-based biotechnology firm Pfenex has started a multi-product research program with PATH, a global health nonprofit organization, as part of an initiative to improve vaccine production.
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The research program is part of a recent grant secured by PATH from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to develop a model for improving the production of recombinant protein vaccines against two diseases that pose a high burden in low-resource countries.
Under the deal, PATH is working with Pfenex on an initial pilot project for two important vaccine components.
The first is an adjuvant, the double-mutant Escherichia coli heat-labile toxin (dmLT), used by PATH’s enteric vaccine initiative with several vaccine candidates under development, while the second is a malaria transmission-blocking vaccine candidate, Pfs25, supported by PATH’s Malaria Vaccine Initiative.
By partnering with Pfenex and using its high-expression system, PATH aims to accelerate the two vaccine programs in this pilot project.
Pfenex chief executive officer Bertrand Liang said: "This project represents yet another example of how Pfenex’s experience in the area of complex protein development and manufacture can provide innovative solutions for global health, with a portfolio of antigens and adjuvants that have been difficult or impossible to express in other host systems or organisms facilitating vaccine development previously not possible."
Additionally, this project may lead to the creation of a platform to expedite the production of other recombinant protein vaccine antigens both for PATH and potentially other Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation-funded vaccine product development partnerships.
The company is engaged in the development of high-value biosimilar therapeutics and difficult to manufacture proteins.