BRIEF—Enesi Pharma collaborates with Public Health England on solid-dose vaccine for emergent threat pathogens

Oxford, UK-based Enesi Pharma has entered a research and development collaboration with Public Health England (PHE), an executive agency of the UK government’s Department of Health and Social Care.

The collaboration is focused on the development and evaluation of a novel solid-dose formulation of a number of PHE’s proprietary vaccine candidates including anthrax recombinant protective antigen (rPA) and Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever (CCHF) for delivery via Enesi Pharma’s ImplaVax needle-free technology.

Pre-clinical testing of a range of ImplaVax enabled vaccines in animal models has evidenced regimen sparing and a reduced time to achieve threshold immunity against comparative conventional liquid vaccines administered using a needle and syringe.

Such regimen sparing saves time and money, allowing more patients to be vaccinated more quickly from a fixed available production volume, potentially expanding coverage, preparedness and emergency response.

The current vaccination schedules of many vaccines require multiple doses.

An ImplaVax-enabled vaccine therefore has the potential to dramatically enhance vaccination programs for military and other at-risk personnel as well as providing a rapidly deployable therapeutic option for individuals who have been exposed to the target infectious disease.