Dyadic licensing deal seeks affordable vaccines and biologics for Africa
Dyadic International and Rubic One Health had already established a deal for the protein expression platform on a co-development basis for researching, developing and manufacturing other C1 produced COVID-19 vaccines. This agreement included Dyadic’s COVID-19 recombinant protein receptor binding domain (RBD) booster vaccine candidate, DYAI-100.
As a result of the expanded license, Rubic can now use the platform to develop vaccines and therapeutic proteins beyond COVID-19, for both human and animal health markets. In return, Dyadic will receive marketing rights and other considerations, including milestones and royalty payments, from Rubic.
Dyadic’s technology is based on microbial platforms to produce various biologic treatments, which the company states provides a better alternative to current platforms. Dyadic claims that these are too expensive and not sufficient to meet global demand for vaccines, monoclonal and other antibodies, and therapeutic proteins.
The C1-cell protein production platform is based on a microorganism, called C1, which can produce biologic vaccines and drugs at commercial scales. Dyadic states that the platform allows for the manufacture of low-cost biological products.
“It is imperative that African nations acquire and commercialize technology and manufacturing capabilities necessary to deploy preventative and therapeutic treatments for broad populations, both affordably and timely. Expanding our partnership with Dyadic affords Rubic increased capabilities to rapidly develop, manufacture and distribute a broader portfolio of high-quality human and animal health vaccines and biologic drugs, without the need for extreme temperature control requirements, more efficiently, in less time, and at an affordable cost,” said Julian Naidoo, CEO of Rubic One Health.
Rubic is based in Africa and is made up of strategic partners, with the aim of providing affordable and accessible vaccines to the people in Africa. According to the organization, the pandemic highlighted that less than 1% of all human vaccines used on the continent are locally produced.
The two partners originally signed a licensing deal for DYAI-100, which is currently going through clinical trials in India, after being provided funding by the Indian government and having being licensed to Epygen Biotech.
In March 2022, Dyadic provided an update to say that dosing of all patients in a Phase I clinical trial for the vaccine candidate had been completed. On the news, the company’s CEO, Mark Emalfarb, said that he expected the study to demonstrate antibody responses, with the success of the trial expected to accelerate adoption of its C1-cell protein production platform.
