Cobra awarded DTI grant to develop oral vaccine delivery platform

A consortium led by UK-based Cobra Biomanufacturing (CBF), has been awarded a £1.1m grant from the UK Department of Trade and Industry to evaluate the application of Cobra's proprietary ORT-VAC vaccine technology.

The consortium comprises researchers from the University of Cambridge and the Royal Holloway, University of London, under the direction of Professor Nigel Slater and Professor Simon Cutting.

Cobra's ORT-VAC oral vaccine delivery system uses innocuous bacteria to deliver vaccines orally, increasing the ease of vaccine distribution and administration and greatly simplifying production technology. ORT-VAC is therefore ideally suited vaccines for developing countries and applications in the animal health sector. The funds awarded will be largely used to support pre-clinical experimentation in the laboratories of Cobra's collaborators.

In conjunction with the UK Defence Science and Technology Laboratory at Porton Down, Cobra has already established the ORT-VAC concept in the course of research into oral vaccines against anthrax and plague.

'This grant provides valuable third party endorsement and enables us to develop our vaccine platform cost effectively,' said David Thatcher, ceo of Cobra. 'The project targets the development of oral vaccines for bird influenza and HIV/AIDS.'

'Live bacterial vaccines offer huge benefits both to patients and vaccine manufacturers, and we are delighted to be working with Cobra to evaluate the use of its ORT-VAC technology in creating oral vaccines for diseases where there are major unmet clinical needs,' added Professor Cutting of the Royal Holloway.