Bavarian Nordic recently became part of a joint collaboration involving the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) and Evaxion Biotech — a Danish biotechnology company — to develop a vaccine for Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).
The vaccine will be an MVA-BN-based immunization created with computer-based technology from Evaxion that can detect new antigens.
Evaxion has had promising efficiency results from earlier preclinical models. Using those results, Bavarian Nordic plans to design and manufacture a recombinant MVA-BN-based vaccine candidate that can be evaluated using further preclinical studies conducted at DTU.
If the new candidate is effective and safe, human trials are slotted for 2019.
MRSA causes deaths and high rates for hospitalization. This means that there is a high burden on public health care costs because of the disease, for which there is currently no vaccine.
This new technology may be able to help researchers detect other bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics.
“We are pleased to join this collaboration and take part in the efforts to develop an effective vaccine that may eventually help improve public health and reduce mortality,” Paul Chaplin,
Bavarian Nordic’s chief executive officer, said. “In addition, this collaboration provides an opportunity to investigate MVA-BN in new indications, which yet again broadens the scope of our vaccine platform technology.”
