For the development of vaccines against infectious diseases, Intravacc has designed and developed a platform based on Outer Membrane Vesicles.
Outer Membrane Vesicles or OMVs are spherical particles (ca. 20-200nm) that are naturally released by Gram-negative bacteria. OMVs harbor many bacterial antigens. These antigens play a role in establishing the infection and survival of the bacterium within the host.
Intravacc has three types of OMV vaccines, depending on the target disease and antigen selection.
The most straightforward type is produced by deriving OMVs directly from the target Gram-negative bacterium, these are called homologous OMVs. These will harbor many antigens and give a broad protection.
If this is not possible, for instance if the pathogen is a high containment bacterium, or the bacterium is difficult to cultivate, we can express antigens in our platform OMV. This type is called heterologous OMVs.
The third option is the Click-OMV; this is used if expression of the antigen is not possible in the bacterium. This is the case when post translation modification is needed. For the click method, the OMVs can be decorated with immunogenic peptides and/or proteins that will drive effective adaptive immunity. The OMV carrier has been optimized to induce a more effective immune response against these newly introduced antigens.
In addition, OMVs can be administered intramuscularly, but also intranasally when mucosal immunity is preferred.
Intravacc has extensive expertise in developing vaccines that are based on the OMV technology. This is evidenced by 84 scientific publications in peer reviewed publications and 8 patent families since 2013.
We have developed genetic tools to increase the yield of OMVs, to reduce toxicity, and to achieve the desired antigenic composition. Intravacc’s OMV platform is fully scalable and allows for fast and efficient modification of antigen composition, either via genetic modification of the bacterial host or by associating antigens to stockpiled carrier OMVs.
A team of 100+ specialists is at your disposal here in Bilthoven. Contact us to see how we can bring your vaccine concept ready for in-human trials.
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