COLUMBIA, Md.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Advanced BioNutrition Corp. (ABN), a leading provider of advanced stabilization and delivery solutions across the health and nutrition, agriculture, and biopharma industries, announced today that it is collaborating with Myron M. Levine, MD, DTPH, Simon and Bessie Grollman Distinguished Professor of Medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine’s (UMSOM) Center for Vaccine Development and Global Health (CVD), to test a new formulation of a live oral Salmonella Paratyphi A vaccine to prevent paratyphoid fever.
ABN has developed a platform of proprietary stabilization technologies that significantly improve and extend the viability of highly-sensitive bioactive materials, such as probiotics, vaccines, other microbials, and even biomolecules such as enzymes and vitamins. In the case of vaccines, many strains are so sensitive that they must be continuously refrigerated or frozen from the time of production up to the point of being administered to patients. This requirement significantly drives up costs and logistical complexity. In addition, this cumbersome “cold chain” greatly limits accessibility to potentially life-saving vaccines, especially in remote or less developed areas.
ABN’s previous commercial success in enhancing vaccine stability bodes well for finding a formulation that will significantly reduce current vaccine cold chain requirements. The development of a non-refrigerated vaccine has the potential to significantly reduce the estimated 3.4 million cases of paratyphoid fever and approximately 322,000 deaths caused annually by Salmonella Paratyphi A, according to the World Health Organization.i
“We are extremely honored and excited to have the opportunity to work with Dr. Levine and his research team, who are world-renowned in the field of vaccine discovery, development, and commercialization,” said Dr. Mark Thompson, ABN’s Vice President of R&D. “The ABN team is confident that our technology will greatly improve the stability of selected vaccine strains at room temperature and above, and will go a long way toward breaking the cold chain that currently limits accessibility to some potentially life-saving vaccines.”
The University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB), encourages and supports a wide variety of collaborations with industry partners like ABN, organized through UMB’s Office of Research and Development.
“An attraction of CVD’s oral paratyphoid vaccine is that there is no injection involved, so hesitancy to be vaccinated is reduced. In addition, there is no needle and syringe to be disposed of thereafter, which is a dilemma for health workers in poorly resourced countries,” said Dr. Levine. “However, the live vaccine is currently susceptible to adverse effects of high tropical temperatures. ABN’s technology would allow our vaccine to survive high temperatures without a need for cold storage. This would be a breakthrough.”
About the University of Maryland School of Medicine’s Center for Vaccine Development and Global Health (CVD)
The CVD is an academic enterprise engaged in the full range of infectious disease intervention from basic laboratory research through vaccine development, pre-clinical and clinical evaluation, large-scale pre-licensure field studies, and post-licensure assessments. The CVD’s faculty and staff are experts in the field of global health and vaccinology, and they are dedicated to improving global health by conducting innovative, world-leading research in Baltimore and around the world. The CVD’s key mission is to harness the power of vaccines to prevent disease and save lives in the most vulnerable populations. For over 40 years, the CVD’s researchers have worked domestically and internationally to develop, test, and deploy vaccines to aid the world’s underserved populations.
About Advanced BioNutrition Corp. (ABN)
Founded in 2001 in Columbia, Maryland, ABN (www.ABN-corp.com) is a world-class technology provider focused on offering environmentally sustainable and science-based stabilization and delivery solutions to a variety of industries, including Human Health & Nutrition, Agriculture, and Biopharma. ABN's research team of biologists, chemists, food scientists, agronomists, and engineers works collaboratively alongside customers to adapt the company's proprietary technologies to resolve specific product issues and formulation challenges to better stabilize, protect, and deliver a wide range of sensitive bioactives. ABN's innovative solutions enable its partners to enhance their products in ways that improve performance and value.
i Typhoid and other invasive salmonellosis, World Health Organization
