Development of a vaccine against Tick-borne encephalitis virus

The last 20 years have seen the rise of several epidemics threatening global health, such as SARS, H1N1, MERS, Ebola, MPOX, Dengue, and COVID-19. Vaccines have proved themselves as the main tool for epidemic prevention, both recently and historically, yet the field of vaccine development is still lacking in many areas. For one, vaccines development is a difficult area for companies to enter as new products are very expensive to develop and manufacture (1B$ is often given as a ballpark figure for putting a vaccine on the market). Additionally, many of the areas with the highest need for such vaccines are located in low- and medium-income countries (LMICs), which does not guarantee a return on the investment.

For such indications, there is an urgent need to develop a safe, effective and affodrable vaccine, and at the same time validate a fast and cost effective way to develop vaccines for other endemic/emerging diseases, which could be used to solve unmet medical needs in many low and medium Income countries, as well as offering counter-measures for future pandemics.

This proposal is centered around the development of an safe, efficient and cost-effective vaccine, based on a flexible vaccine platform able to adress many more unmet needs, in a fast and cost-effective fashion. This platform could therefore been used to respond to biological threats such as a naturally-occuring pandemic or a bioterrorist attack. The development of vaccines for other member of the Flavivirus Family (Dengue, Zika, Japanese Encephalitis, West-Nile Virus, etc) will also be facilitated by the development of the TBE vaccine, which will be used as a “template” (for development but also antigen detection/validation and preclinical/CMC/regulatory aspects which will be well developed in the proposal).

For this proposal(which already has some partners experts in immunopeptidomics, CMC/Process development and Preclinical models), we are looking for additional partners in the field of :
-Experts of the Tick-Borne Encephalitis Virus (virology or clinical)
-Regulatory experts
-Clinical experts to perform a Ph1 CT
-A CDMO able to produce small batches of vaccines for Ph1
-Any expertise on vaccine formulation,use of adjuvants or room-temperature formulation.