BOSTON & ST. LOUIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Omniose, a company developing polysaccharide conjugate vaccines against serious bacterial threats, has been awarded a $3.6 million grant for the development of a Klebsiella pneumoniae vaccine from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases of the U.S. National Institutes of Health. Klebsiella pneumoniae is a leading cause of life-threatening sepsis in newborns1 as well as healthcare-associated infections, including pneumonia, bloodstream infections, wound or surgical site infections, and meningitis2. Klebsiella pneumoniae has developed resistance to many classes of antimicrobials and was attributed to or associated with an estimated 600,000 deaths globally in 20193.
“We are grateful for the continued support from the NIH and look forward to further developing our multivalent bioconjugate vaccines targeting both the capsular and O-antigen polysaccharides of Klebsiella pneumoniae,” said Christian Harding, Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer and co-founder of Omniose (previously known as VaxNewMo). Timothy Cooke, CEO, added “This NIH grant funding allows Omniose to extend our on-going efforts to combat serious infections due to Klebsiella.
Omniose Approach to Klebsiella pneumoniae Vaccine
Omniose is utilizing its proprietary bioconjugation platform to develop novel polysaccharide protein conjugate vaccines targeting K. pneumoniae4. K. pneumoniae produces multiple surface polysaccharides, including a capsular polysaccharide (capsule) and a lipopolysaccharide decorated with an O-antigen polysaccharide (O-antigen). Both capsule and the O-antigen are known K. pneumoniae virulence factors and were previously identified as potential vaccine candidates. Funds from this award as well as other NIH grants awarded to Omniose will support the development and IND-enabling studies of bioconjugate vaccines that target the most clinically relevant capsular polysaccharides and O-antigen polysaccharides of K. pneumoniae.
About Omniose
The Omniose bioconjugate vaccine platform enables the precise enzymatic attachment of virtually any bacterial polysaccharide (sugar) antigen to engineered carrier proteins within a single E. coli cell. Bioconjugation is a much simpler process than conventional chemical conjugation methods and has the potential to produce higher quality vaccines. However, the enzymes used for bioconjugation thus far could only address a limited range of bacterial targets. Omniose is breaking through this barrier by expanding the range of bacterial vaccines that can be developed, while leveraging the already established benefits of bioconjugation.
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Taylor, A. W. et al. Initial findings from a novel population-based child mortality surveillance approach: a descriptive study. Lancet Glob Health 8, e909-e919 (2020). https://doi.org:10.1016/S2214-109X(20)30205-9 |
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2 |
Klebsiella pneumoniae in Healthcare Settings, <https://www.cdc.gov/hai/organisms/klebsiella/klebsiella.html> (2010). |
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3 |
Antimicrobial Resistance, C. Global burden of bacterial antimicrobial resistance in 2019: a systematic analysis. Lancet 399, 629-655 (2022). https://doi.org:10.1016/S0140-6736(21)02724-0 |
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4 |
Feldman, M. F. et al. A promising bioconjugate vaccine against hypervirulent Klebsiella pneumoniae. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 116, 18655-18663 (2019). https://doi.org:10.1073/pnas.1907833116 |
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