CAMBRIDGE, Mass. & BRISBANE, Queensland--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Vaxxas, a biotechnology company commercializing a novel vaccine delivery platform, has been named a 2015 Technology Pioneer by the World Economic Forum. Vaxxas is one of 24 emerging technology companies from around the world and across all industries recognized for their potential to transform the future of business and society.
Vaxxas is developing the Nanopatch™, a novel vaccine delivery platform designed to enable more efficient, effective, and safer vaccination than needle and syringe. The Nanopatch™ achieves these benefits by directly targeting delivery of vaccine components to the abundant immunological cells immediately below the surface of the skin, resulting in robust immune system activation at much lower doses than required by needle injection. Vaccines delivered by the Nanopatch™ platform have the potential to provide vastly improved immune protection at significantly lower cost. Furthermore, when vaccines are dry-coated onto the proprietary Nanopatch™, they have thermostable properties, which means that the billions of dollars needed to maintain the cold-chain may someday be reinvested toward more pressing priorities in global health systems. Vaxxas is pursuing strategic plans to both license its technology to global pharmaceutical companies as well as advance vaccine candidates on its own.
“We are so pleased to receive this recognition from the World Economic Forum,” said David L. Hoey, President and CEO of Vaxxas. “It’s really a validation of our potential. Indeed, we see a significant number of opportunities where our technology can have a dramatic positive impact on improving global health, and we are actively seeking financial and strategic partners with the resources and expertise to support our global commercial plans.”
Each year the World Economic Forum chooses a select number of Technology Pioneers from hundreds of applicants. Candidate companies are nominated by Members, constituents and collaborators of the World Economic Forum, and by the public. A selection committee, comprised of top technology and innovation experts, academics and venture capitalists, reviews all applications before making its recommendation to the World Economic Forum.
About the World Economic Forum
The World Economic Forum is an independent international organization committed to improving the state of the world by engaging business, political, academic and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agendas.
Incorporated as a not-for-profit foundation in 1971 and headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, the Forum is tied to no political, partisan or national interests (www.weforum.org).
About Vaxxas
Vaxxas is a privately-held biotechnology company focused on enhancing the performance of existing and next-generation vaccines with its proprietary Nanopatch™ technology platform. Vaxxas’ Nanopatch contains an ultra-high density array of very short projections – invisible to the naked eye – that are dry-coated with vaccine. Application of the Nanopatch to the skin is pain free and rapidly delivers the vaccine to the abundant immune cell population immediately below the skin surface. In a wide range of preclinical studies Nanopatch delivery of vaccine achieves equivalent protective immunity as the needle and syringe – but with as little as 1/100th of the dose. It has also been shown that Vaxxas’ proprietary dry-coating technology can eliminate the need for vaccine refrigeration during storage and transportation – removing the resource burden of maintaining the “cold chain.” Leveraging both the potent immunogenic response and thermostability, Vaxxas is applying its technology to improve the performance of vaccines, with initial applications targeting infectious disease and oncology. The company has its first announced pharmaceutical company collaboration with Merck.
