Iaso’s Innnovative mQβ Platform for Synthetic Vaccine Development
A significant roadblock in developing effective vaccines is the low immunogenicities of antigens for subunit vaccines. Carrier moieties are essential to conjugate with the subunit antigen, deliver the antigen to the immune cells, and to activate the immune system. However, there are only limited choices of carriers for clinical uses, which include CRM-197, tetanus toxoid, and keyhole limpet hemocyanin (KLH). With the increases in types of vaccines being developed clinically, more and more conjugate vaccines are sharing the same carrier, which can interfere with each other. Therefore, a powerful new carrier can be extremely valuable to expand the arsenal of vaccines.
Our company has developed a proprietary mutant bacteriophage Qβ (mQβ) platform technology. Head-to-head comparison studies of against those using the benchmark carriers have shown that our mQβ conjugates can elicit more powerful immune responses. This exciting technology is being applied to vaccines against a variety of diseases including cancer and microbial infections.
In addition to the novel carrier platform, Iaso Therapeutics offers precisely designed synthetic antigens that enable secondary modifications to optimize immune response. Importantly, this also allows for rapid vaccine development in response to pandemics.
Key features of Iaso’s proprietary platform technology separate mQβ from the currently available competition. This includes low immunogenicity against the mQβ carrier protein as shown by minimal anti-mQβ IgG titer to mQβ as compared to wildtype Qβ while retaining high immunogenicity against the antigen, as shown by high anti-Tn IgG titer to mQβ as compared to wtQβ. Finally, head-to-head comparison with gold-standard conjugate carriers proteins such as CRM197, TT and KLH show that mQβ outperforms all of these, with a significantly higher IgG titer generated against the glycan antigen. Importantly, Cytos Biotechnology, Pfizer, and others have conducted 15+ unique Phase I and Phase II clinical trials utilizing the wildtype Qβ, derisking the safety profile of IASO’s mQβ. This allows for Iaso’s proprietary platform technology to be rapidly translated into human trials.
