In January 2024 EnsiliTech announced that it has been awarded a “highly competitive” research contract from the UK’s Small Business Research Initiative to develop the “world’s first thermally stable mRNA vaccine”. The project will be carried out in partnership with Afrigen Biologics in South Africa and EmerVax in the US. EnsiliTech will also work with S-cubed Ltd, who will offer Regulatory Affairs Consultancy support. The research is funded as a UK Aid programme by the Department of Health and Social Care within the UK Vaccine Network.
With a value of around £1.7 million the project will involve work on the development of a world first vaccine against Hantaan Virus (HTNV), which is an orthohantavirus responsible for Haemorrhagic Fever with Renal Syndrome (HFRS), a serious illness with a morality rate of around 15%. Incidence is growing, concentrated in Asia and South America. The project will both prevent thousands of cases each year of HFRS and associated deaths and develop a heat tolerant mRNA vaccine platform with EnsiliTech’s proprietary technology.
Ensilication technology
Despite their “huge potential” for prevention of infectious diseases and other conditions, mRNA vaccines demand ultracold storage. To fix this challenge, EnsiliTech’s ensilicated mRNA platform “removes the need for cold storage” with the potential to “revolutionise vaccine distribution”. This will be of greatest benefit in “remote or resource-limited regions”.
Democratising access
Dr Asel Sartbaeva is co-founder and CEO of EnsiliTech, identifying the team’s “mission” as “to democratise access to vaccines across the globe”. They hope to do this by “developing the first fully thermally stable mRNA vaccine”.
“We are grateful to the SBRI and Innovate UK for being awarded this funding, which will help in bringing vaccines where they are needed.”
Professor Petro Terblanche, CEO of Afrigen, is “excited to be part of this initiative”.
“One of Afrigen’s priorities is to make the latest biological products, such as mRNA vaccines, accessible and affordable to low- and middle-income countries and the potential to eliminate or reduce the need for cold chain logistics through ensilication technology will significantly contribute towards this goal.”
Dr Peter D. Weinstein, Emervax’s CEO, is “enthusiastic” about the opportunity to “participate in this important effort”.
“Emervax will apply its novel mRNA vaccine platform technology to develop a first of its kind HTNV mRNA vaccine that will be used to help protect people throughout the world, regardless of their income, who could be exposed and suffer from this terrible and debilitating disease.”