The biotech is looking to progress its fully synthetic CD8+ T cell adaptive vaccine and announced that it had begun current good manufacturing practice (cGMP) production of the vaccine candidate.
Emergex stated that its vaccine works differently to traditional influenza vaccines, by priming influenza-specific CD8+ T cells that are able to recognize the same peptides when presented on the surface of infected cells, killing them during the eclipse phase and preventing virion production.
According to the biotech, this approach has the potential to supplant the conventional strategy of developing strain-specific vaccines and instead could offer extended, broad immune protection, as well as protection against future pandemic strains of the influenza virus.
In terms of the manufacturing capacity Emergex possesses, a spokesperson for the company told BioPharma-Reporter, “Emergex is in the process of integrating its own GMP manufacturing facility, which will accommodate capacity requirements for Phase I and II clinical trials.”
The spokesperson added that, due to the synthetic nature of the vaccine, which does not contain any biological matter, the process of scaling up capacity further is ‘easily feasibly’ and the manufacturing process itself is simple.
The company recently signed an agreement with the Molecular Biology Institute of Paraná (IBMP) in Brazil, which will involve the UK biotech sharing clinical development with the Institute for the development of Dengue, COVID-19 and Chikungunya vaccines. Should research prove fruitful, the IBMP will claim the exclusive rights for the commercialization of the vaccines in Brazil.