The highly automated facility in Seattle is supported by a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and will produce drug product used in the vaccine candidate IVT-PCV-25.
Production is expected to reach tens of millions of doses in the coming years in anticipation of completion of later stage clinical trials and application for WHO prequalification. As well as serving low and middle-income countries, the facility also has the capability to meet wider global demand for the vaccine: with the site supporting continuous manufacturing.
Inventprise says the opening of the facility reverses the usual vaccine development path: where vaccines are first launched in high income countries and later expanded to low and middle income countries.
Bill Gates joined Inventprise leaders and employees to tour the new facility and speak at the inauguration ceremony.
“Pneumonia is the leading killer of children worldwide, especially in low- and middle-income countries where access to lifesaving vaccines is still far too limited,” he said. “The opening of Inventprise’s new facility marks an important step forward in increasing the supply of affordable vaccines.”
Increasing supply of affordable vaccines
Despite the introduction of PCV vaccines in many countries worldwide, Pneumococcal disease is a leading cause of severe childhood pneumonia, meningitis, and sepsis, killing approximately 300,000 children before age 5 per year worldwide.
Inventprise was founded by Subhash Kapre, PhD in 2012 to advance novel, affordable and highly impactful vaccines using proprietary technology, with the initial goal of providing lifesaving interventions to low- and middle-income countries.
IVT-PVC-25 is an investigational pneumococcal conjugate vaccine being developed by the company, in collaboration with non-profit global health organization PATH.
It uses the company's platform to protect against some of the deadliest and emerging strains of pneumococcal disease seen globally especially in vulnerable pediatric populations, many who reside in low- and middle-income countries.
Other investigational vaccines from the company include candidates to prevent human papillomavirus (HPV), group B streptococcus (GBS), meningococcus and severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2).
The company has three other facilities in Seattle: one for viral R&D and manufacturing; another for bacterial R&D; and a site dedicated to small scale cGMP manufacturing.
