ATUM and Phylex BioSciences Collaborate to Accelerate the Development of a Universal SARS Coronavirus Vaccine

ATUM and Phylex BioSciences have entered into a collaboration to leverage ATUM’s Leap-In Transposase platform to develop the cell line essential to the manufacturing of Phylex’s universal SARS coronavirus vaccine candidate. The Phylex vaccine candidate aims to protect people against SARS-CoV-2 and other highly pathogenic SARS coronaviruses that may follow in the future.

The Phylex vaccine candidate antigen contains conserved epitopes close to the receptor-binding domain of the SARS coronavirus S-protein. A large number of copies of this antigen are displayed on a virus-like particle (VLP). This VLP, expressed by a single gene, self-assembles after being secreted by the cell line that is being developed by ATUM.

“We are extremely pleased to announce this collaboration with ATUM which we believe will accelerate the development of our universal SARS coronavirus vaccine candidate,” said Pascal Brandys, co-founder and CEO of Phylex BioSciences. “ATUM’s leap-in transposases and synthetic transposons enable a robust cell line development program for our universal SARS coronavirus vaccine. With this collaboration we will be able to start development in parallel with immunogenicity studies expediting our timeline to initiate clinical trials. Our objective is to offer not only a universal vaccine candidate against the SARS coronavirus by this fall, but also a clear and accelerated path to GMP-compliant manufacturing and clinical development.”

“A universal coronavirus vaccine has the potential to provide an important new resource for fighting pandemic outbreaks now and in the future and we are proud to collaborate with Phylex to deliver on this vision,” said Oren Beske, PhD, senior vice president of corporate strategy at ATUM. “ATUM’s Leap-In platform is a rapid and robust cell line development platform that derisks the transfer, process development, scale-up and manufacturing of vaccines.”