Okairos research project supported by Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

The grant, provided by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, allows the three groups to work together to develop scalable methods to enable large-scale production of multiple novel chimpanzee adenovirus vector constructs.

“We are pleased to expand our partnership with Okairos focusing on novel constructs utilizing chimpanzee adenovirus for next generation TB vaccines, as well as our collaboration with the University of Oxford, both of which are central to our organizational mission,” said Tom Evans, MD, Interim CEO of Aeras. "This effort to improve optimization and scale up under current good manufacturing practices could also potentially benefit our peers in HIV and malaria vaccine development.”

Novel constructs to be pursued include Okairos’ proprietary technology platform that uses potent chimpanzee adenovirus vectors to stimulate robust T-cell and antibody responses against selected antigens.

Dr Riccardo Cortese, Chief Executive Officer of Okairos, said: “This new collaboration will enable us to advance our promising technology platform. By continuing to work with Aeras and Oxford, partners with proven expertise in vaccines development, we ultimately aim to deliver novel vaccines to developing countries where there is great need.”

Okairos is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, developing genetic vaccines for major infectious diseases - including malaria, hepatitis C, HIV, respiratory syncytial virus and cancer - using a novel proprietary technology. The company is headquartered in Basel, Switzerland and has laboratories in Rome and Naples, Italy. The company was spun out from Merck in 2007.