Armed with findings from University of Oxford's Department of Zoology, Blue Water Vaccines believes it has the blueprint for a universal influenza vaccine.
Blue Water Vaccines, a US-based universal flu vaccine developer exploiting University of Oxford research, today closed an oversubscribed $7m seed round led by public-private seed fund CincyTech that featured unnamed, CincyTech-affiliated individuals.
Blue Water Vaccines aims to produce a vaccine capable of treating all subtypes and strains of influenza, commonly called the flu.
Influenza viruses all target the respiratory system and resemble each other genetically, however the many forms of the pathogen rapidly evolve and range in severity, meaning flu vaccines must be updated on a seasonal basis.
Blue Water exploits research from University of Oxford co-led by Sunetra Gupta, professor of theoretical epidemiology at the Department of Zoology, and Craig Thompson, a virology postdoctoral research scientist in the same department.
The research relied on mathematical modelling to evaluate how flu strains evolve. Gupta and Thomson determined a universal flu vaccine could target immune responses against parts of the virus which are limited in variability.
Their concept has been verified by initial preclinical studies, which suggested mice vaccinated with influenza regions of limited variability gained immunity to all known historic flu strains.
Cash from the seed round will fund a further preclinical study, ahead of a phase 1 clinical trial currently anticipated in 2020.
Blue Water Vaccines is headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio but conducts lab research in Oxford. It secured exclusive rights to the vaccine from Oxford University Innovation, the institution’s tech transfer office.
Thompson said: “This work serves as a good example of how evolutionary models can have translational impact. We have gone from a prediction of a mathematical model describing how flu evolves to a blueprint for a universal flu vaccine.”
