One patent and five pending patents covering the platform technology and individual vaccines by Scripps Research are licensed to Ufovax with global and sublicense rights
The 1c-SApNP platform technology
- Enables modular, plug-and-play design of effective vaccines by displaying diverse immune targets
- Is fully optimized for low-cost, large-scale industrial manufacturing via high-capacity CHO expression and two-step purification
- Is a next generation platform with superior design and production advantages over the traditional virus like particle (VLP) platform
- Offers a universal solution to both prophylactic and therapeutic vaccines
Genetically-encoded, one-component, self-assembling protein nanoparticles (1c-SApNP) vaccine
Two basic facts:
- Virus-like particles (VLP) induce potent immune responses and are the most effective form of vaccines (Gardasil® for HPV as an example)
- Some bacterial enzymes (e.g. E2p) can self-assemble into nanoparticles of ~25 nanometers, thus providing VLP-like vaccine carriers after protein engineering
Ufovax 1c-SApNP vaccine design:
- Patented rational design of uncleaved, prefusion-optimized (UFO) antigen, UFOAg, for each viral target
- Encode the optimized antigen sequence (UFOAg) and the NP-forming sequence (NpLdTh ) within a single vaccine plasmid, termed UFOAgNpLdTh
- Create VLP-type vaccines with enhanced manufacturability, namely, 1-step CHO expression followed by a 2-step purification process