A study using SpyBiotech’s vaccine technology shows its potential against Covid-19 and other Coronaviruses

Published on 29 Apr 2022

A research paper demonstrating the potential of SpyBiotech’s SpyCatcher/SpyTag vaccine platform has been published in Science Advances.

A Covid-19 vaccine being developed with SpyBiotech’s technology elicited a strong immune response in non-human primates, showing titres of neutralising antibodies (>104) that were above the range of protection provided by other licensed vaccines in pre-clinical studies. The vaccine, which contains the receptor-binding domain (RBD) of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein displayed on a hepatitis B virus-like particle (VLP), was constructed using SpyBiotech’s covalent peptide-mediated linkage system SpyTag/SpyCatcher and administered with Alum.

With the hope that the worst of the pandemic is behind us, there is a growing drive to develop variant proof vaccines for coronaviruses and have a suite of vaccine technologies to prepare for the next disease X with pandemic potential.

One of the advantages of SpyBiotech’s vaccine technology is that it is modular and can be manufactured with antigens from emerging variants using the same process. In addition to this, the technology is also being used to develop a “mosaic” particle vaccine displaying different RBD’s that elicit broad neutralising antibodies against potential emerging zoonotic coronavirus not displayed on the vaccine.

This modular design of protein antigens paired with large-scale manufacturing capacity in yeast could provide an affordable and easily implemented solution not only to prepare for future outbreaks, but also to tackle other viruses and infectious diseases in countries where cost, ease of manufacturing and storage are core considerations.

Sumi Biswas, CEO, CSO and Co-founder of SpyBiotech, said:

“The growing consensus that we need to be ready for future outbreaks is tied to a recognition of the need for a suite of technologies that can generate vaccines rapidly, safely and cost-effectively. That is why we continue to advance our SpyTag/SpyCatcher platform, to develop vaccine technologies that are both highly adaptable and capable of being reproduced at low-cost.”

The research paper was the result of a multi-institutional collaboration between the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Serum Institute of India, University of Kansas, Bioreliance and Beth Israel Deaconess, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and SpyBiotech.

Science Advances is the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences’s (AAAS) open access multidisciplinary journal. Read the research paper in full here.