PopVax Secures $1.15M from Gates Foundation for Thermostable mRNA Delivery Development

MUMBAI, India & HYDERABAD, India I October 30, 2024

PopVax, a pioneering Indian biotechnology company specializing in mRNA vaccines and therapeutics, is pleased to announce the latest developments in its research on lipid-polymer delivery formulations for thermostable mRNA vaccines. This significant research initiative has received financial backing from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation under a project agreement worth 1.15 million USD, signed in October 2023. This follows a previous project agreement in 2021, where PopVax was awarded 100,000 USD to support initial exploratory work on the mRNA platform and delivery formulations, which incorporate unique lipids and polymers designed by the company. In September 2024, the company launched its first animal study to evaluate the efficacy of a formulation developed through this project.

Dr. Maunish Barvalia, PopVax’s Vice President of Platform Technologies, is the Principal Investigator for this project. Dr. Barvalia has extensive experience in nucleic acid delivery, having previously worked with leading research groups at NanoVation Therapeutics and during his PhD at the University of British Columbia in Canada.

"We at PopVax are thrilled to have the backing to advance novel thermostable delivery formulations for mRNA-based vaccines and therapeutics,” said Soham Sankaran, Founder & Managing Director of PopVax. “The COVID-19 pandemic underscored the versatility and rapid development capabilities of mRNA technology, which was critical in saving lives. However, the approved mRNA vaccines required storage at temperatures between -20 °C and -80 °C, posing significant challenges for distribution in developing countries that lack the necessary cold chain infrastructure. The delivery formulations we are working on are designed to be stable at standard refrigerator temperatures while maintaining their effectiveness across different routes of administration. This advancement will facilitate quick, large-scale distribution of new mRNA vaccines and treatments to tackle infectious diseases in developing countries, addressing both potential future pandemics and existing deadly pathogens.”

PopVax has developed innovative mRNA architecture for presenting immunogens on virus-like particles (VLPs), a lipid nanoparticle (LNP) delivery platform using newly designed ionizable lipids, and a computational approach to protein design enabled by machine learning. These technologies, combined with the company’s GMP-ready infrastructure and clinical dose production processes, form the backbone of PopVax’s capacity to swiftly transition new mRNA biomedicines from concept to clinical application.

Founded in late 2021 and initially incubated at the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CSIR-CCMB), PopVax now employs 70 professionals across various teams dedicated to computational, experimental, analytical, process development, and quality assurance work at the RNA Foundry, its integrated R&D and process development facility in Hyderabad.

PopVax’s flagship program focuses on developing a next-generation COVID-19 vaccine that provides broad protection against both current and future variants of SARS-CoV-2. This vaccine candidate is anticipated to commence human clinical trials in the United States in early 2025. Additionally, PopVax has six novel vaccine candidates in its preclinical pipeline and plans to initiate five clinical trials over the next two years.