Prokarium, Probiomed Initiate Scale-up of Thermostable Vaccines

Prokarium and Probiomed initiated their collaboration to scale-up the manufacture of orally administered vaccines in a formulation that would enable stability at 40°C for several weeks. The first vaccine to be manufactured will be developed to prevent so-called ‘Montezuma’s revenge’ or diarrhea, which affects the local population as well travelers in Mexico and many countries.

The leading bacterial causes of diarrhea are Shigella, enterotoxigenic E. coli (ETEC) and Non-Typhoidal Salmonellosis. A vaccine could prevent bacterial diarrhea but none is currently available. This two-year project builds on preclinical work already conducted on a diarrhea vaccine using UK-based Prokarium’s oral vaccine delivery platform and combines this with Mexican Probiomed’s capability to construct, test and manufacture to clinical scale an oral, thermostable vaccine.
 
Self-administered oral vaccines will significantly reduce the cost and increase the scope of vaccination, especially if they are thermostable over several weeks during the final stages of distribution.

Prokarium’s chief executive officer Ted Fjallman said, "Prokarium’s technology avoids the need for injections with a needle and more importantly means it can be delivered to people living in remote resource-poor areas, as the vaccine is stable at high temperatures and can be manufactured for approx. one third of the price of conventional injectable vaccines. Together with Probiomed we now aim to prove we can scale-up and make enough of these vaccines to really make a difference to people worldwide."
 
Probiomed’s chief executive officer Jaime Uribe Wiechers added, "One of Probiomed’s strategic goals focuses on the company’s capitalisation of its advanced manufacturing technologies; a very important step is taken by this collaboration. I’m positive that the technological background of this product, along with Prokarium’s expertise in biotechonolgy and our own, will lead to a high added value vaccine that will enhance people’s health on both continents."
 
The collaboration is supported by the UK government’s Newton Fund, administered by Innovate UK, and by the Mexican government’s innovation agency CONACYT. The results of the project will be widely applicable to many different vaccines for difficult-to-target diseases worldwide.