Naobios and Sumagen partner to develop HIV vaccine

Under the contract, Naobios SAS will provide bioprocess development and GMP production of clinical batches of a virus-based HIV vaccine candidate for  Korean-Canadian biotech Sumagen Co. Ltd. Financial terms of the agrement were not disclosed. Sumagen is using a new highly attenuated rVSV viral vector platform technology.
 
According to 2022 figures of the World Health Organization (WHO) about 39 million people were living with HIV. Developing an HIV vaccine has been one of the most difficult challenges in medical research, as it requires blocking a huge number of genetically variable forms of HIV. Naobios will manage the manufacturing process of Sumagen’s whole-inactivated HIV vaccine candidate to confirm its safety and efficacy in a Phase I clinical trial and perform further process development to prepare the HIV-1 vaccine for Phase II clinical trials.
 
With its BioSafety Level 3 (BSL3) production site, Naobios has the capability to support the development and production of vaccines for highly pathogenic viruses, like HIV, where no vaccine has yet been identified. It will manage process development and optimization activities for one year, after which it will support the launch of cGMP manufacturing for phase II clinical trials.