CAMBRIDGE, Mass. & BRISBANE, Australia--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Vaxxas, a clinical-stage biotechnology company commercializing a novel vaccination platform, today announced it has completed a financing round which raised US$23 million (A$34 million) in new funds. This investment round was led by existing investors OneVentures and UniQuest Pty Ltd. New investors include members of the Vaxxas Board of Directors, management team, and a number of individual investors.
Proceeds from the financing will be used to advance Vaxxas’ clinical programs, including the company’s needle-free COVID-19 vaccine candidate, and installation of the company’s first manufacturing lines with capacity to support its first products through late-stage clinical studies as well as early commercial production.
“Our confidence has only been reinforced by Vaxxas’ tremendous progress in building a promising clinical pipeline based on its novel HD-MAP vaccination platform,” revealed Dr Paul Kelly, Founding Partner and Head of Healthcare at OneVentures. “We believe Vaxxas’ needle-free vaccination technology will dramatically improve the availability, efficacy, and safety of vaccines for a range of serious and prevalent diseases, including COVID-19 and influenza. We are pleased to continue supporting the Vaxxas team through this pivotal time in the company’s growth - as it applies a breakthrough approach to address some of the most significant unmet global needs in infectious and potentially other diseases.”
The financing will accelerate the clinical program for Vaxxas’ COVID-19 vaccine patch candidate which is currently in Phase I clinical trials and is based upon the company’s proprietary HD-MAP delivery of HexaPro, a second-generation version of the spike protein used in all major US-approved COVID-19 vaccines. Results from preclinical animal studies of HD-MAP delivered HexaPro published in Science Advances, showed the potential efficacy of this COVID-19 vaccine patch against all currently known variants of concern.
“This financing from a strong syndicate of experienced life science investors reflects the significant potential of our considerable product pipeline and novel needle-free vaccination technology,” said David Hoey, Chief Executive Officer of Vaxxas. “With a strong foundation to our HD-MAP platform, we are well positioned to advance multiple product opportunities toward commercial launch. In the near-term, we will continue to advance our lead COVID-19 vaccine program along with other clinical initiatives, and execute our go-to-market strategy of building commercial-scale manufacturing capacity and high throughput production lines.”
This US$23 million (A$34 million) in new funding will leverage non-dilutive financial support of more than US$67 million (A$100 million) which has been provided and committed to Vaxxas under contracts with US and Australian government agencies, including US Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), industry collaborators, and global health organizations, including the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
About Vaxxas
Vaxxas is a privately held biotechnology company focused on enhancing the performance of existing and next-generation vaccines with its proprietary high-density microarray patch (HD-MAP). Vaxxas is targeting initial applications in infectious disease and oncology.
Vaxxas’ core technology was initially developed at The University of Queensland (UQ), and the company was established as a start-up in 2011 by UQ’s commercialization company UniQuest, a major shareholder in Vaxxas. The company was founded with the completion of an initial equity financing led by OneVentures Innovation Fund I with co-investors Brandon Capital Partners, Brandon BioCatalyst, and US-based HealthCare Ventures, followed by a further financing led by OneVentures. OneVentures Innovation Fund I and Brandon BioCatalyst are supported by the Australian Government’s Innovation Investment Fund (IIF) program. The IIF is an Australian Government venture capital initiative that provides investment capital and managerial expertise through licensed venture capital fund managers to investee companies. Learn more at www.one-ventures.com and www.brandoncapital.vc.
Caution
Vaxxas’ HD-MAP delivered vaccines are under investigation and available only for investigational uses. They are not available anywhere in the world for sale or purchase. As such, Vaxxas makes no claim that the vaccines are reliable, durable, dependable, safe, or effective, and makes no claim that it is superior to any other vaccine or vaccine delivery technology.
