Mymetics heads €5.3m medical biotech venture

A Dutch subsidiary of a major American biotech company has secured funding from Horizon 2020 for the evaluation, development and manufacturing scale-up of thermostable and cold-chain independent nanopharmaceutical virosome-based vaccine candidates.

Mymetics Corporation, a pioneer in the R&D of virosome-based vaccines to prevent the transmission of human infectious diseases, announced that its subsidiary Mymetics BV, in the Netherlands, is leading a consortium that has been selected to receive project grants with a total value of €8.4m. A total of €5.3m is drawn from Horizon 2020 along with up to €3.1m of funding will be provided by the Swiss State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation for the Swiss-based consortium partners.

Ronald Kempers, chief executive of Mymetics, commented: “With more than 90% of the existing vaccines dependent on the cold-chain and the resulting detrimental impact on availability, efficacy and costs of these vaccines in developing countries, there is an undisputable need to innovate and manufacture vaccines that are stable and temperature independent.

“We are very pleased that our virosome vaccine technology and knowhow has been recognised together with the skills and expertise of our EU consortium partners. Funding this project can represent a major innovation in vaccine development.”

The EU Horizon 2020 project is entitled ‘Manufacturing process for cold-chain independent virosome-based vaccines’ (MACIVIVA). The project will last for three and a half years and brings together the leading contract manufacturers and the relevant expertise for spray drying, freeze drying, and analytical techniques from the pharmaceutical industry to develop a scalable manufacturing process to achieve thermostable and cold-chain independent virosome-based vaccines.

Adding her thoughts, Dr Sylvain Fleury, Mymetics CSO and overall MACIVIVA project co-ordinator, stated: “We are very thankful for the EU Horizon 2020 and Swiss funding organisations to finance this very important innovation project in the world of vaccines.

“We look forward to working with our consortium partners and to start the efforts on our promising virosome-based HIV vaccine candidate, with the overall objective to make this scalable and applicable for all our virosome-based vaccines.”