The Wellcome Trust has signed on as a new investor of VaxInnate, leading a $30 million Series D for the vaccine developer as it pursues a more efficient approach to the field. New Leaf Venture Partners, Canaan Partners, HealthCare Ventures, Oxford Bioscience Partners, MedImmune Ventures and CHL Medical Ventures joined the round.
Cranbury, NJ-based VaxInnate says its prototype swine flu vaccine will be ready for animal testing in six weeks. And the developer says it plans to use part of the new round to fund a Phase II clinical trial of its M2e universal flu vaccine and a Phase I clinical trial of its seasonal flu vaccine in an elderly population. VaxInnate is developing new fusion vaccines by producing proteins in bacteria instead of eggs.
"The additional funding will make it possible for us to continue advancing our flu vaccines forward to market and to support the application of our technology platform to vaccines for other infectious diseases, among them HPV, RSV and the emerging swine flu," says CEO Alan Shaw, PhD.
- check out VaxInnate's release