Preparing for Disease X

A University at Buffalo biotechnology spinout will receive up to $9.7 million from a major global health initiative to advance a vaccine candidate for H5N1 avian influenza, commonly known as bird flu, and to test its rapid-response vaccine platform.

POP Biotechnologies, Inc. (POP BIO) will use the funding from the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) to support continued development and early clinical testing of the H5N1 candidate, as well as to evaluate whether the company’s SNAP nanoparticle vaccine platform can be adapted quickly for other epidemic and pandemic threats.

That broader goal includes preparing for a future Disease X—the term scientists use for an unknown pathogen that could emerge and cause a serious international outbreak.

POP BIO’s platform grew out of research led by Jonathan Lovell, SUNY Empire Innovation Professor in UB’s Department of Biomedical Engineering, and co-founder and CEO of the company.

“This project brings us into an entirely new phase,” he says, “leading development of a vaccine candidate in the U.S. while testing what SNAP could make possible for future outbreak response.”

SNAP—short for Spontaneous Nanoliposome Antigen Particle—works like a flexible vaccine-building system, accelerating the development of nanoparticle-based vaccine candidates while also streamlining purification of the antigens used in them.

Vaccines often use antigens—pieces of a virus or other pathogen that teach the immune system what to recognize. POP BIO’s platform is designed to display those antigens in a form the immune system can recognize more readily.

With the new grant, POP BIO will use that approach to advance a vaccine candidate for H5N1, a virus that has raised concerns because it has spread widely in birds, infected mammals and caused isolated human cases. Early clinical testing is planned at SUNY Upstate Medical University in Syracuse.

CEPI officials say this work is important because rapid vaccine development depends in part on preparing vaccine components with the right purity, consistency and speed—a priority tied to the 100 Days Mission, an international target to make vaccines available within roughly 100 days after a new pandemic threat is identified.

If SNAP can be used to develop and manufacture an H5N1 candidate efficiently, it could help show how the same system might be adapted for other outbreak threats.

“The H5N1 work gives us a concrete way to test SNAP as a rapid-response platform,” Lovell says. “We can advance a vaccine candidate for avian influenza while learning how the same system might be used when a new threat emerges.”