PHYLEX VACCINE ON TRACK TO COMBAT DEADLY NIPAH VIRUS WITH POSITIVE RESULTS OF IMMUNOGENICITY STUDY

DEL MAR, Calif. , Aug. 6, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Phylex Biosciences has achieved positive results with its new mRNA nanoparticle vaccine against the Nipah virus in an immunogenicity study conducted in collaboration with scientists of the U.

S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia . The Nipah virus is a pathogen causing encephalitis and acute respiratory distress in humans, with recent outbreaks in Bangladesh , India , Malaysia , the Philippines and Singapore , and a fatality rate over 50%.

The natural hosts of the virus are large fruit bats present across South Asia . Last month the Indian state of Kerala reported the death of a 14-year-old boy from a Nipah virus infection. To date, no approved vaccine or therapeutic exists against the Nipah virus.

Phylex has published a preprint of a research article on immunogenicity of its Nipah mRNA nanoparticle vaccine candidate in mice co-authored with scientists of the CDC ( https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.

1101/2024.08.05.

606671v1 ). The vaccine elicited a robust neutralizing antibody response, with neutralizing titers markedly higher than with several other Nipah vaccine designs, and efficient neutralizing even with a single dose. The Phylex mRNA vaccine encodes for a nanoparticle displaying 60 copies of the antigen based upon the head domain of the G protein of the Nipah virus.

In virus neutralization assays, neutralization titers of Phylex vaccine-elicited sera against Nipah virus were 3-fold the aver.