SpyBiotech, a UK-based biotechnology company with a novel vaccine platform technology that can target infectious diseases, cancer, and chronic diseases, has received a grant of $4,094,561 from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to further develop its novel SpyVector platform.
This project will harness SpyBio’s ‘plug and display’ technology to design a broadly cross-protective coronavirus vaccine.
The platform
SpyVector is a platform based on recombinant adenovirus. The platform enables easy and efficient covalent decoration of the surface of the adenovirus with pathogen antigens in addition to genetically encoding the antigen, as demonstrated in a recent publication modular capsid decoration boosts adenovirus vaccine-induced humoral immunity against SARS-CoV-2.
The platform increases the quantity of antibodies induced by decorating the adenovirus with the antigen while maintaining the T cell response to the encoded antigen.
Looking forward
While SpyBio continues to develop the SpyVector platform, the company is advancing its lead candidate – a vaccine targeting human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) using its Hepatitis B virus-like-particle platform technology – into the clinic later in 2023.
Official comments
“This grant will showcase the potential of the SpyVector technology which can be applied to generate vaccines against a wide range of pathogens and therapeutic applications,” said Dr Sumi Biswas, President and CSO of SpyBio. “Our SpyVector technology, developed by our Principal Scientist Dr Matthew Dicks and his team, has the potential to generate more broadly protective coronavirus vaccines.”
