The power of science fiction films retains its hold when it comes to inspiring inventors, but the secret to corporate venturing and open innovation lies in retaining optionality.
Drawing on inspiration from Star Trek, Vaxxas, a spinout of Queensland University, Australia, has developed technology which could mean vaccine delivery via needles and syringes could soon be a thing of the past.
The World Economic Forum named the company a Technology Pioneer in late 2014 and over the past decade it has been working on a nanopatch, based on research at the university’s Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology, that delivers vaccines painlessly and more efficiently than syringes.
Now, pharmaceutical company Merck & Co, known as MSD outside the US and Canada, has exercised its option to use Vaxxas’ High Density Microarray Patch (HD-MAP) platform for a vaccine candidate. Merck also retains an option to license the HD-MAP technology for two additional vaccines.
Vaxxas CEO David Hoey said: “With [its] strong legacy of vaccine development Merck is a tremendous partner in our efforts to enhance the efficiency, effectiveness and reach of vaccination.”
Through the exercise of an option agreed in a collaboration agreement originally signed in 2012, Merck gains exclusive worldwide rights to develop and commercialise an undisclosed vaccine utilising Vaxxas’ HD-MAP technology. Vaxxas will receive $12m in equity funding and option fees associated with the agreement, and is eligible to receive future option, development and commercial milestone payments. Merck will fund any requested additional research activities conducted by Vaxxas and is responsible for clinical development.
Spun out by UniQuest, the University of Queensland’s technology transfer office, Vaxxas’s technology consists of thousands of tiny projections which inject the vaccine directly into immune cells in the skin. A needle delivers the vaccine into the muscle, where much fewer immune cells are located. By also using proprietary dry-coating technology, the need for vaccine refrigeration during storage and transportation can also be potentially eliminated.
Vaxxas has received funding from the World Health Organisation on top of a $15m series A round in 2011 and $20m from OneVentures Innovation Fund I, Brandon Capital, the Medical Research Commercialisation Fund (MRCF) and US-based HealthCare Ventures in 2015.
But for Merck, which is trying to leverage its strengths in vaccines given the heightened interest in pathogens caused by the coronavirus, the optionality of open innovation has already borne fruit. (Merck’s David Stevenson will be chairing a private roundtable at the GCV Digital Forum and William Taranto, head of Merck Global Health Innovation Fund, will be talking in a live question and answer session).
