Evaxion Biotech A/S has received funding from the Danish Innovation Fund to further develop their AI platform RAVEN to rapidly respond against future coronavirus pandemics – from initial discovery to first in human trials in as little as 13 weeks. During those 13 weeks SB3000 intends to develop and validate a tailored μLOT® continuous manufacturing process for the vaccine at commercial scale. Being modular and easily transportable the μLOT® enabled production units can be deployed to sites across the world.
Evaxion believes that by combining its structural design tools and prediction algorithms, RAVEN (Rapidly Adaptive Viral Response) will be able to develop a vaccine design that induces both a T and B–cell response. The main aim of the RAVEN platform is to respond rapidly to future emerging viral pandemics, and intends to target the virus behind COVID-19 as a proof of concept in animal models.
Lars Wegner CEO of Evaxion commented, “We believe that it requires high levels of innovation to design and develop a new vaccine very rapidly and we intend to harvest the full potential of our RAVEN AI technology platform. To do this we will be combining it with an equally innovative manufacturing technology to tackle the production bottleneck of current manufacturing technologies to rapidly scale up commercial production. We expect that the SB3000 μLOT® technology for continuous manufacturing of peptides will allow us to accelerate design, development and supply. The manufacturing process will be developed at scale during pre-clinical studies and, upon validation, we expect that this method will be scaled out and moved straight into commercial production with no further development required, at a fraction of the traditional manufacturing cost.”
“We believe that one of the most important benefits of this technology is that a manufacturing facility enabled by μLOT® can be easily set up or relocated due to its modular design. We believe that this is becoming particularly important as more and more countries see securing internal supply of essential medicines as a key strategic element of a nation’s security,” says Head of R&D of SB3000 Jens Bukrinski.
SB3000 has been developing the μLOT® technology for some years and in addition to this agreement with Evaxion, SB3000 has a research agreement with, a large international pharmaceutical company, and is in the advanced stages of negotiations on a commercial production agreement with a large European specialty pharmaceutical company.
Zsolt Lavotha CEO of SB3000 commented, “We are delighted to be working with Evaxion, which we believe to be a leader in bringing rapid advances in the discovery and design of potential new treatments through their proprietary AI technology platforms. The COVID-19 pandemic has shown the importance of not only the rapid discovery of new treatments, but also the importance of getting these treatments to patients around the world.”
