Liquidia, the designer and manufacturer of engineered particles, has announced that its collaboration with PATH has been extended to develop next generation Pneumococcal vaccine.
The vaccine, if successful, could potentially allow for manufacturing efficiencies that transform to greater access to the vaccine by the global population.
Liquidia CEO Neal Fowler said, "Our shared goal to improve vaccine performance and reduce manufacturing costs using our transformative technology remains unchanged as does our confidence that this collaboration has the potential to significantly impact the spread of pneumonia in the developing world."
The polysaccharide vaccines, which protect against several bacterial diseases, rely on chemically bonding polysaccharide antigens to a carrier protein through complex conjugation chemistry.
The complexity and inefficiency of this approach limits strain coverage and global availability.
Liquidia uses PRINT (Particle Replication In Non-Wetting Templates) platform to bring the polysaccharide and carrier protein together without traditional conjugation.
These vaccines are cost prohibitive and do not cover all variations of the pneumococcal bacterium.