SWEDEN – NorthX Biologics of Sweden, which focuses on process development and large-scale production of advanced biological drugs, has signed a collaboration agreement with Abera Bioscience for upscaling and GMP manufacturing of its pneumococcus vaccine candidate, Ab-01.12.
NorthX recently established an innovation hub to assist partners in meeting their long-term drug development objectives.
Abera’s decision was based on the company’s ability to handle new ways of working and experience with unique development demands.
Abera Bioscience is a biotechnology company that creates vaccine candidates using its own vaccine platforms.
Ab-01.12, the company’s lead candidate, is a nasal spray-based universal vaccine against pneumococcus. The vaccine candidate is being prepared for human clinical trials by the company.
The vaccine will be administered as a nasal spray and has demonstrated a strong effect in pre-clinical studies by reducing the presence of bacteria in the nasal mucosa to one thousandth that of unvaccinated individuals.
Ab-01.12 is a pneumococcus vaccine candidate that uses novel technology to protect against all variants of the bacterium.
Pneumococcus is a bacterium that causes ear infections and sinusitis in mild cases, but can also cause severe pneumonia, sepsis, and meningitis.
Pneumococci primarily affect children and the elderly, resulting in 1.5–2 million deaths per year, making this bacterial infection one of the leading causes of death in children under the age of five worldwide.
The bacterium has nearly a hundred variants, and current vaccines only protect against about twenty of them.
Abera’s candidate Ab-01.12 is based on Abera’s vaccine platform BERA, in which OMV (Outer Membrane Vesicles) are decorated with pneumococcus universal antigens, providing broader disease protection.
“We at NorthX are proud of our collaboration with Abera. Abera is exactly the kind of player we have strived to work with in our innovation hub – innovation-driven vaccine companies with a high level of research and knowledge of their own process,” said Eva-karin Gidlund, Head of Alliance and Innovation at NorthX Biologics.
“Abera shines with ambition and has clear goals we would like to help them achieve. Abera’s vaccine platform with its plug’n’play technology is exciting and creates opportunities for several new vaccine projects in the future.”
NorthX Biologics based in Matfors, Sweden that specializes in process development and large-scale production of advanced biological drugs.
Its Matfors facility has been in operation for several decades, providing early stage companies like Abera with the opportunity to collaborate with an experienced and flexible biologics manufacturer.
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