VaxNewMo gets highlighted for vaccine breakthrough

ST. LOUIS, Mo. – VaxNewMo, a St. Louis bioscience startup, is working to develop broader, more affordable vaccines at a faster rate with its patented technology.

“VaxNewMo is developing more affordable pneumococcal conjugate vaccines that provide broader protection against more strains of bacteria that cause pneumococcal pneumonia,” Dr. Mario Feldman, co-founder of VaxNewMo and associate professor of molecular microbiology at Washington University School of Medicine St. Louis, said.

On Thursday, VaxNewMo announced the company’s breakthrough research is featured in Nature Communications. According to VaxNewMo’s news release, being published in the journal validates their technology and highlights their findings.

“Our technology platform allows for a straightforward, more affordable method of developing other next-generation vaccines to protect against human and livestock infectious diseases,” Feldman said.

VaxNewMo uses lab-safe E. coli to bypass the dependency on the synthetic chemistry techniques which were previously required to manufacture conjugate vaccines. The work is done through its patented bioconjugation technology.

“We are proud to share our research and meet the high-quality threshold to be published in Nature Communications,” Dr. Christian Harding, CEO and co-founder of VaxNewMo, said.

The company’s current study has been done through collaborated experiments with groups located in Canada, Australia and the United States.

VaxNewMo is a BioGenerator Labs tenant. Through BioGenator, the investment arm of BioSTL, VaxNewMo has been provided “non-dilutive” grant funding as well as business coaching for complex license negotiations, team building and business strategy.

“The St. Louis bioscience ecosystem has significantly propelled our research and development to reach this point,” Harding said. “Specifically, BioGenerator equipped us with funding and technical, business and regulatory acumen, and Arch Grants also provided funding and pro bono support services.”

Through the Grants-2-Business program that coaches entrepreneurs through the process of submitting “strong” grant application, BioGenerator has helped VaxNewMo win two federal grants totaling over $500,000 in addition to the $50,000 Arch Grant.

Harry Arader, director of entrepreneur development at BioGenerator and business coach for VaxNewMo, said the company’s breakthrough approach in developing glycoconjugate vaccine gives promise of accelerating new, more effective vaccines to market in a faster way compared to traditional approaches.

“BioGenerator is proud to support Dr. Feldman and Dr. Harding to help them demonstrate that their technology will work and make a big different protecting the most vulnerable among us,” Arader said.

The article published by Nature Communications entitled “A platform for glycoengineering a polyvalent pneumococcal bioconjugate vaccine using E. coli as a host” can be read here.

FEATURED IMAGE/VaxNewMo Logo/FACEBOOK – VAXNEWMO LLC

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