UB spinout POP Biotechnologies receives up to $9.7 million to advance rapid-response vaccine platform

BUFFALO, N.Y. – POP Biotechnologies, Inc. (POP BIO), a University at Buffalo (UB) spinout developing vaccines and therapeutics, will receive up to $9.7 million from the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) to advance a vaccine candidate for H5N1 avian influenza and test its rapid-response vaccine platform.

The funding will support continued development and early clinical testing of the H5N1 candidate, commonly known as bird flu. The work also will help evaluate whether POP BIO’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.

The new award builds on an initial $1.5 million CEPI investment announced in 2025, which supported early proof-of-principle work with SNAP against a different viral disease.

POP BIO’s platform grew out of research led by Jonathan Lovell, PhD, SUNY Empire Innovation Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering, a joint program of UB’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences.

After disclosing the groundbreaking technology to UB Business and Entrepreneur Partnerships’ (BEP) technology transfer office, the technology was licensed to and became the basis for POP BIO, a UB spinout that continues to grow with support of UB BEP’s startup resources.

“This is really taking research that began in a UB lab into clinical testing,” says Lovell, co-founder and CEO of POP BIO. “It’s hugely significant because POP BIO will be leading the effort to bring forward a new vaccine in the U.S. The funding allows us to move the SNAP platform into the manufacturing, preparation and Phase 1 testing needed to show how it could work for H5N1 and for pandemic preparedness more broadly.”

SNAP – short for Spontaneous Nanoliposome Antigen Particle – works like a flexible vaccine-building system. It is designed to attach vaccine proteins to tiny lipid particles, creating nanoparticle-based vaccine candidates more efficiently.

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.

Under the CEPI-funded project, POP BIO will use that approach to advance an H5N1 vaccine candidate. The work also gives the company a way to test the broader platform: 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.

CEPI officials say the 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 of making vaccines available within roughly 100 days after a new pandemic threat is identified. Shaving time off steps like purification is part of how that timeline becomes more realistic.

H5N1 has raised concern because it has spread widely in birds, infected mammals and caused isolated human cases.

“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.”

POP BIO is part of a broader group of faculty-founded companies emerging from UB research. Across the university, more than 50 licenses have been executed with startups, and more than 30 active faculty-founded companies are supported through BEP startup programs and incubators.

Since its founding, POP BIO has worked with BEP across multiple stages of company development, including startup programming, incubator space at the BEP Incubator @ Baird, Entrepreneur-in-Residence support, the Bruce Holm Memorial Catalyst Fund and repeated UB Center for Advanced Technology in Big Data and Health Sciences (UB CAT)-supported research collaborations.

BEP’s UB CAT-supported projects have helped POP BIO work with UB faculty to generate data, advance platform development and pursue new applications for its vaccine and drug delivery technologies.

“POP BIO is a clear example of what sustained university support can make possible,” says Per Stromhaug, PhD, MBA, senior associate vice president for economic development at UB. “The company began with technology developed in a UB lab, moved through our technology transfer process and continued to build through BEP’s incubator network, startup programs and UB CAT-supported research.”

He adds, “CEPI’s investment reflects the progress our spinouts can have when faculty innovators have strong commercialization support behind them.”

That support can be especially important in biotechnology, where moving from a university discovery toward clinical development can require years of technical, regulatory and business decisions. For POP BIO, BEP’s role has changed as the company’s needs have changed.

“Companies like POP BIO need more than one kind of support,” says Smitha James, senior associate director of CBLS and life sciences programs at BEP. “At different points, that has meant helping the company access space, stay connected to UB research, pursue translational funding and build relationships beyond the university.”

POP BIO has also built partnerships beyond UB – including licensing and development relationships connected to its SNAP platform.

Lovell has credited BEP’s Entrepreneur-in-Residence program with helping introduce POP BIO to EuBiologics, the South Korean company that became a partner in developing a COVID-19 vaccine using the SNAP technology.

For Lovell, the new CEPI grant marks a major step for a company that has spent years developing and licensing SNAP for different vaccine applications – including COVID-19, RSV and shingles – while continuing to build from its base in Buffalo.

“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.”

The University at Buffalo’s Business and Entrepreneur Partnerships (BEP) provides a suite of services and programs that connect entrepreneurs, startups and industry with UB’s resources—such as cutting-edge research, advanced technologies, expert faculty and a diverse talent pool—to drive innovation, facilitate technology transfer, foster industry collaborations and promote economic and workforce development.