Themis Bioscience GmbH, an Austrian based vaccine company, has secured a $37.5 million from the Coalition of Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI). The coalition’s aim is to create new vaccines for emerging infectious diseases, in this case, towards Lassa Fever and MERS-CoV. CEPI looks to provide a global health insurance policy with the intention of being better positioned to react swiftly against possible global epidemics by prospectively investing in vaccines towards emerging diseases early rather than waiting for catastrophic outbreaks to which organisations react (please see our earlier post relating to CEPI). The agreement is over a five-year period, supporting Themis through clinical phase 2 testing as well as the costs associated with the manufacturing of CTM for trials or deployment of the vaccine during emergency outbreaks.
Themis are currently developing Chikungunya and Zika vaccine using their measles virus vector platform. Their lead vaccine towards Chikungunya is currently undergoing three parallel phase 2 trials in the U.S. mainland, Europe and in Puerto Rico with the vaccine rapidly moving towards Phase 3 in 2019. The Themis platform technology was originally licenced from the Pasteur Institute in Paris, France. This platform allows for rapid development and up-scaling of a cost-effective vaccine production process and benefits from the measles vaccine’s excellent track record for efficacy and safety.
GreyRigge Associates has been working closely with Themis for a number of years and has assisted in helping progress its vaccines to their current positions as well as being heavily involved in helping secure almost £4m in non-dilutive funding from the UK government for the development of their vaccines.