Brisbane-based biotech company Vaxxas to grow local jobs with its vaccine patch delivery device
Brisbane biotech company Vaxxas hopes to grow highly skilled local jobs with its vaccine patch, a pain-free alternative to the needle and syringe.
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Brisbane-based biotechnology company Vaxxas is about to take the next big steps towards commercialising its novel vaccine patch technology, which is expected to grow highly skilled local jobs.
As part of a new $18 million deal, the University of Queensland spinout company, which already employs more than 40 people in Brisbane, will work with one of the world’s vaccine leaders Merck to trial an undisclosed candidate vaccine in humans using its unique vaccine delivery device, a pain-free alternative to the needle and syringe.
A separate collaboration with German pharmaceutical manufacturing company Harro Hofliger will allow Vaxxas to create a high-speed pilot manufacturing line in Brisbane incorporating a robotic handling system capable of producing one million patches a week for use initially in late-stage human trials.
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The one centimetre squared patch contains thousands of tiny, invisible projections that apply dried vaccine into the densely populated immune cells of the skin.
“We’ve developed a vaccine printing technology that prints the vaccine onto the projections and that way we can control the dose that goes onto the patch,” said Vaxxas’s Boston-based CEO David Hoey.
A recently published study of 210 people, which compared the patch’s delivery of flu vaccine with needle and syringe, found the patch produced a similar immune response using one-sixth of the full dose of vaccine administered as a traditional injection.
The hope is that the patch, once given regulatory approval, will result in the production of more patient doses from limited quantities of vaccine but the company admits it has years more work before being able to commercially manufacture its product, working towards a 2026 timeline.
Mr Hoey said the company, based at the Translational Research Institute, on the Princess Alexandra Hospital campus, must first demonstrate it could mass produce sterile patches with “100 per cent quality control” to gain approval from regulatory authorities, such as the Food and Drug Administration in the US and Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration.
More human trials, involving larger numbers of patients, are also needed to demonstrate efficacy before Vaxxas could apply for regulatory approval.
Mr Hoey said the pilot manufacturing line would take about 12 to 18 months to build but a smaller, proof-of-concept system, was expected to be delivered from Germany in August.
The company plans human trials of a patch-delivered measles and rubella vaccine, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, early next year.
Human studies of Merck’s vaccine candidate are scheduled to begin in the second half of next year.
Once the pilot manufacturing line is in full production, Mr Hoey said it would be capable of producing vaccine patches that could be used in human studies “anywhere around the world”.
Bucking the recession, he said the move towards manufacture would increase the Vaxxas workforce to up to about 80 workers, with hundreds of jobs expected if the patch received regulatory approval and they were able to transition into full-scale production within the next five years.
He expected the company to retain a “Brisbane footprint” with manufacture of the components that make up the device to be done locally, including the plastic patch and an applicator.
Vaxxas chief development and operations officer Angus Forster said much work had been done with a highly specialised team in Brisbane into being able to mass produce the patch cheaply - about $1 each before the vaccine was added - on par with needle and syringe.
But he said the patch not only had the benefit of being a more acceptable way of delivering a vaccine, particularly for the needle-phobic, it did not require the same level of refrigeration as vaccines delivered via needle and syringe - a key advantage in developing countries.
Dr Forster said the patch was also designed to be applied by someone themselves, or a family member, rather than a doctor or nurse, although that would have to be assessed in trials ahead of regulatory approval.
“Every time you make a claim about what your technology can do, you have to back that up with data,” he said. “That’s what we’re building up now.”
Vaxxas has raised $66m in equity and received $41m in funding, giving them cash reserves for up to three years of operation.
The Merck deal includes unspecified commercial milestone payments for reaching clinical goals.