Oxford Vacmedix, a spin-out from the University of Oxford in the UK, will commercialise a new technology that could reduce the cost of developing vaccines for the prevention of infectious diseases and cancer.
Researchers have discovered that overlapping peptides in a bacterial system are cheaper and more effective than using a peptide synthesiser to develop vaccines.
Study author Dr Shisong Jiang explained; "The present way of making overlapping peptides is to chemically synthesise all the peptides. The use of the peptide synthesiser, and the limited quantity of peptides produced in this way, made the overlapping peptides very expensive to produce.
"In contrast, our new method of making overlapping peptides in a bacterial system will allow us to obtain the recombinant protein and then the overlapping peptides endlessly. It is a great improvement compared with the previous method."
In a separate announcement, OVM UK said it has formed a joint venture with Chinese investors to enable the majority of trials of the Oxford technology to be undertaken at the Changzhou Bioincubation Centre.
The laboratory space will be managed by Isis Innovation, the University of Oxford’s research commercialisation company and owner of the license to the new technology.
Oxford Vacmedix HK will be eligible to access up to RMB 2m in funding from the Changzhou Government.
Initially, the joint venture will use the investment to prepare the technology for application in tuberculosis and HPV, followed by other infectious diseases and as a cancer vaccine against protein Survivin.
