Collaboration to develop mRNA vaccine against betacoronaviruses

Ethris GmbH a German company specialising in the development of mRNA vaccines, announced their collaboration with DIOSynVax Ltd., an English biotech company working on vaccine customisation, on the development of mRNA vaccinations against a broad range of Betacoronaviruses. This effort is being funded by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) the Norway-based foundation, founded by Melinda and Bill Gates, and set on financing independent research projects to develop vaccines. This vaccination strategy is intended to protect against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19 illness, as well as other members of this group of extremely deadly coronaviruses.

The CEPI endowed DIOSynVax with $42m to fund the development of a widely protective Betacoronavirus vaccine through a Phase I/II clinical trial. Ethris will get up to $20m in funding to develop and produce an mRNA vaccine candidate utilizing DIOSynVax's broadly protective, multi-virus vaccine antigen payload designs. “Over the last three years, coronaviruses have proven their pandemic potential. The best way to control COVID-19 in the long term, and to prevent another coronavirus pandemic in the future, will be with vaccines that can protect us against newly emerging coronaviruses and against variants of this one,” commented Dr. Melanie Saville, Executive Director of R&D from CEPI. “We are excited to see the progress from this collaboration, which has the potential to bring a new generation of vaccines to people around the world.”