Children in the Developing World Can Now Be Immunised Without Needles or Refrigeration

Another Major Milestone for Vaxxas’ Revolutionary Vaccine Delivery Platform.

Queensland-based Biotech company Vaxxas certainly embodies the Australian Government’s innovation strategy – “the ideas boom”. Their Nanopatch™ product is an innovative vaccine delivery platform, with many exciting benefits over traditional delivery methods, perhaps most notably in the developing world, who are rarely the early beneficiaries of technological developments.

The Nanopatch™ is a tiny silicon chip that has thousands of vaccine-coated micro projects. It is applied to the skin with an applicator device, replacing needles for the delivery of vaccines.

PharmOut has been working with the Vaxxas team, completing process simulations for the aseptic processing of the Nanopatch™. The successful simulations were achieved within an extremely tight timeframe as part of ongoing clinical studies for the delivery system. The time from process concept to completion of successful simulations was among the shortest PharmOut have witnessed in similar processing environments. To achieve this result so quickly is a testament to the hard work and extensive expertise of the Vaxxas Brisbane team.

Vaxxas have teamed with the World Health Organisation and plan to perform clinical trials in 2017 for polio vaccination via the Nanopatch™. In addition to the obvious benefits of a needle-free delivery system, Nanopatch™ doesn’t require refrigeration, making it a highly desirable alternative in remote and developing world areas, where reliable cold chain transport and storage is less accessible.

PharmOut congratulates the Vaxxas team, and we look forward to seeing more exciting developments regarding Nanopatch™ in the future.

About Nanopatch™

Nanopatch™ is a next-generation vaccine delivery platform that enables robust immune system activation by targeting vaccine components to the abundant immunological cells immediately below the surface of the skin. Vaxxas’ proprietary Nanopatch™ technology aims to provide an optimized, differentiated needle-free vaccine delivery solution with the potential to safely and cost effectively enhance vaccine efficacy.

Application of the Nanopatch™ to the skin is designed to be a pain-free method of vaccine delivery and has been shown in preclinical studies to result in a protective immunogenic response, using as little as one hundredth of the dose required by conventional needle and syringe. The robust immune response inherent to Nanopatch™ – delivered vaccines can also enable reduction or elimination of additives such as adjuvants and proprietary dry-coating of vaccine to the Nanopatch™ can eliminate the need for refrigeration during storage and transportation.

Blog Description: PharmOut is pleased to have helped the Australian company Vaxxas reach the next milestone in the development of their Nanopatch™ needle-free vaccine delivery technology. It may soon be possible to deliver the polio vaccine to the developing world, without the current need for refrigeration.

**5 October 2017 Update** Nanopatch Delivers Polio Vaccine

Efforts to rid the world of polio have taken another significant step, thanks to research led by University of Queensland bioscience experts and funding from the World Health Organisation (WHO).

A fresh study of the Nanopatch – a microscopic vaccine delivery platform first developed by UQ researchers – has shown the device more effectively combats poliovirus than needles and syringes.

Head of UQ’s School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences Professor Paul Young said the breakthrough provided the next step in consigning polio to history.

“Polio was one of the most dreaded childhood diseases of the 20th century, resulting in limb disfigurement and irreversible paralysis in tens of millions of cases,” Professor Young said.

“This most recent study showed the Nanopatch enhanced responses to all three types of inactivated poliovirus vaccines (IPV) – a necessary advancement from using the current live oral vaccine.

“We are extremely grateful to the WHO for providing funding to Vaxxas Pty Ltd, the biotechnology company commercialising the Nanopatch.

“The support specifically assists pre-clinical studies and good manufacturing practices.”

Patch inventor Professor Mark Kendall said the study exhibited a key advantage of the Nanopatch.

“It targets the abundant immune cell populations in the skin’s outer layers, rather than muscle, resulting in a more efficient vaccine delivery system,” Professor Kendall said.

“The ease of administration, coupled with dose reduction observed in this study suggests that the Nanopatch could facilitate inexpensive vaccination of inactivated poliovirus vaccines.”

UQ Australian Institute for Biotechnology and Nanotechnology researcher Dr David Muller said effectively translating the dose could dramatically reduce the cost.

“A simple, easy-to-administer polio Nanopatch vaccine could increase the availability of the IPV vaccine and facilitate its administration in door-to-door and mass vaccination campaigns,” said Dr Muller.

“As recently as 1988, more than 350,000 cases occurred every year in more than 125 endemic countries.

“Concerted efforts to eradicate the disease have reduced incidence by more than 99 per cent.”

“Efforts are being intensified to eradicate the remaining strains of transmission once and for all.”

“The research we are undertaking in conjunction with UQ and WHO can improve the reach of life-saving vaccines to children everywhere,” Vaxxas chief executive officer David Hoey said.

Read full article here.

Congratulations from the PharmOut team.