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news.German biopharmaceutical company CureVac has won the European Commission's EUR2m inducement prize for its RNActive vaccine technology, which is based on optimized, antigen-encoding and complexed mRNA molecules that stimulate the immune system.
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According to CureVac, RNActive vaccines represent a novel technology to manufacture safe, efficacious and cost-effective vaccines which are protected against elevated temperature as well as inadvertent freezing.
RNActive vaccines, as a result of their exceptional stability, eliminate the demand for cold chain logistics. It would be possible to rapidly produce these mRNA-based vaccines against almost any infectious disease, and deliver these to the most remote areas of the world.
Currently, RNActive is being clinically investigated as prophylactic vaccines for infectious diseases as well as cancer immunotherapies.
Delivery of vaccines from manufacturer to recipient can take up to 18 months and, for most vaccines, the doses must be kept at a constant and cool temperature. This requires a stable cold chain, which is logistically difficult to achieve as well as expensive.
The European Commission offered the EUR2m prize to encourage inventors to overcome one of the biggest barriers to using vaccines in developing countries: the need to keep them stable at any ambient temperature.
CureVac CEO and co-founder Ingmar Hoerr noted the company is extremely honored that the jury has recognized the company’s results of more than 14 years development of RNActive vaccines as the biggest leap forward in vaccine technology.
"Our vaccine technology platform reflects nature’s mode of action. By analyzing and adapting the natural evolution and functions of mRNA, we have established safe and potent minimal vaccines, easy to administer with no requirement of any additional immune stimulating adjuvant.
"We are currently developing RNActive vaccines against different infectious diseases in preclinical and clinical studies. Thanks to all of our contributing friends and collaborators. We are very confident that we and our partners have an outstanding opportunity to be the first to bring an mRNA-based vaccine to market," Hoerr added.
In vivo data published by CureVac and the Friedrich-Loeffler-Institute in Nature Biotechnology in December 2012 showed that RNActive prophylactic vaccines induced balanced, long-lived and protective immunity to influenza A virus infections in various animal models.