The grant from the Technology Strategy Board, the UK’s innovation agency, and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council will help fund development of Prokarium’s oral vaccine delivery platform and two candidates targeting typhoid, ETEC and Clostridium difficile, a cause of colitis in the elderly.
Carl-Johan Spak said the grant “will not only bring us closer to creating the next generation of oral vaccines against two very important diseases, but also recognises Prokarium as an innovative synthetic biology company.”
The Vaxonella platform was acquired by Prokarium last July from Emergent Biosolutions and while Prokarium intends to use the grant money to develop its candidates in-house, it also intends to license the delivery technology out to other biotechnology companies.
Prokarium, based in Keel and London, UK is working with the University of Birmingham Institute of Microbiology and Infection in its developments of the platform and therapies.