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news.Avant Immunotherapeutics and Australian biotechnology firm Select Vaccines have entered a partnership that will focus on the use of virus-like particles as a platform technology for the development of vaccines.
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The research and development efforts will initially target vaccines against influenza including both epidemic and pandemic forms of vaccine, with the opportunity to expand the collaboration to other disease targets.
In preclinical studies, Select Vaccines has demonstrated proof-of-principle for expressing vaccine antigens on its virus-like particles (VLPs) with approximately 10 different antigens.
“Select Vaccines' novel virus-like particles due to their specific size have the potential to generate stronger immune responses than current VLP-based vaccines,” commented Una Ryan, president and CEO of Avant Immunotherapeutics.
“The Select Vaccine technology is particularly promising for addressing viral disease targets, which complements Avant's bacterial vaccine pipeline and allows Avant to more fully address the total vaccine market, which industry experts estimate will exceed $20 billion by 2010.”
Under the terms of the agreement, Avant will make an upfront equity investment in Select Vaccines and fund influenza vaccine development for two years, as well as provide payments for the achievement of specific development milestones.
Avant also gains the exclusive right to apply the technology to a second target within the next two years, and a third target within the next three years. Select Vaccines would also be eligible to receive royalties based on net sales of products developed.