CanSinoBIO will hold rights to commercialise the vaccine product in Asia, except in Japan, while PNI will retain rights for remaining regions around the world
The NanoAssemblr Ignite with NxGen Technology for transformative medicines. (Credit: CNW Group/Precision Nanosystems.)
CanSino Biologics (CanSinoBIO) and Precision NanoSystems (PNI) have agreed to jointly develop an mRNA lipid nanoparticle (mRNA-LNP) vaccine against Covid-19.
Under the collaboration, PNI will leverage its original RNA vaccine platform, which contains a lipid nanoparticle delivery system and NanoAssemblr manufacturing technology to rapidly advance a Covid-19 mRNA-LNP vaccine candidate towards human clinical testing and regulatory approvals.
In addition, PNI will take responsibility for the development of the mRNA-LNP vaccine, while CanSinoBIO will conduct pre-clinical testing, human clinical trials, regulatory approval and commercialisation of the vaccine.
CanSinoBIO will hold rights to commercialise the vaccine product in Asia, except in Japan, while PNI will retain rights for remaining regions around the world.
CanSinoBIO co-founder, chairman and CEO Xuefeng Yu said: “Our team has been dedicated to developing safe and effective vaccines to fight against the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Since RNA vaccines are a disruptive technology as they do not require cell culture, utilise synthetic delivery and have a smaller manufacturing footprint, our partnership with PNI to advance a mRNA-LNP vaccine candidate will not only help accelerate the process, but will also potentially revolutionize the vaccine industry.”
PNI will leverage RNA vaccine platform for the Covid-19 mRNA-LNP vaccine candidate
CanSinoBIO is a Chinese vaccine firm that has four integrated platform technologies including adenovirus-based vectors, conjugation, protein design and recombination and formulation.
The company has recently collaborated with the National Research Council of Canada to start clinical testing of the Ad5-nCoV vaccine candidate in Canada.
In addition to the development of Ad5-nCoV, CanSinoBIO also joined forces with PNI to develop and commercialise mRNA-LNP based vaccine against Covid-19.
PNI is a Canada-based biotechnology firm engaged in developing technologies and solutions for the development and manufacture of nanomedicines in the areas of oncology, infectious diseases, and rare diseases.
The company’s NanoAssemblr GMP System and manufacturing process are said to play an important role in scalable, high throughput, reproducible centralised manufacturing of nanomedicines.
PNI co-founder and CEO James Taylor said: “We are very excited to partner with CanSinoBIO, an innovative biopharmaceutical company leading the way for Covid-19 vaccine development.
“We strongly believe PNI’s NxGen microfluidic technology and our expertise will enable the rapid development and manufacturing of an effective mRNA-LNP vaccine for Covid-19, and provides the foundation for future pandemic preparedness.”