Gennova Biopharma speeds up Nipah virus vaccine development with mRNA tech

vaccine development with mRNA tech

Gennova Biopharmaceuticals, a subsidiary of Emcure Pharmaceuticals based in Pune, is advancing the creation of an innovative self-amplifying mRNA (saRNA) vaccine against the Nipah virus. This important effort has been made possible by an expansion of the existing partnership, with an additional $13.38 million proposal to the Norway-based Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI).

Gennova will also collaborate with Houston Methodist Research Institute (HMRI), a partner of CEPI based in the U.S., to implement this new AI technology to inform protein properties derived from the virus that can induce the immune system to create the optimal targets for Gennova´s vaccine research in the lab and clinical settings.

The Nipah virus belongs to the Paramyxovirus family. It is one of the deadliest known human pathogens. So far, Nipah outbreaks have been limited to South and Southeast Asia; however, the fruit bat vector has a wide distributed global population covering over 2 billion people. In August 2023, CEPI funded $3.6 million in the initial phase to support the refinement and optimization of Gennova’s saRNA-platform technology to develop vaccine candidates against pathogens that pose unknown pathogenic threats, or Disease X.

The first round of funding was part of CEPI’s initiative to support new RNA vaccine platform technologies for emerging and certain endemic infectious diseases that may offer numerous advantages over existing mRNA technologies, such as multivalency, enhanced immunogenicity, storage and stability, productivity, response time, and cost-of-goods.