Vical introduces DNA vaccine cell-free platform to accelerate vaccine production

US biopharma r&d company Vical has launched the RapidResponse DNA vaccine platform designed to produce large quantities of vaccine in a matter of days, rather than the several months required for conventional vaccine production.

This platform is intended to reduce significantly the time required to develop, manufacture and deploy vaccines against emerging diseases during the early stages of an infectious outbreak. By using a cell-free manufacturing process, the company believes that the RapidResponse DNA platform can overcome the time, capacity and cost challenges of manufacturing conventional vaccines, which use killed or disabled viruses grown in chicken eggs or via cell culture, requiring months of production time in large, dedicated facilities.

RapidResponse DNA vaccine manufacturing involves a cell-free process and single-step vaccine purification. The process has the potential to be scaled up by simply using larger equipment with no increase in production time, conceivably allowing production of hundreds of millions of doses of DNA vaccine during the earliest stages of an outbreak.

'In an emerging disease outbreak, speed of vaccine deployment is crucial,' said Vijay Samant, president and ceo of Vical. 'The RapidResponse DNA vaccine platform has the potential to develop and produce a vaccine against even a previously unknown pathogen within a week of obtaining the pathogen's genetic sequence.'

Next steps in the development of the DNA vaccine platform will include determination of the lowest effective dose, head-to-head comparison against plasmid DNA vaccine, and scale-up in adherence with cGMP to production of quantities appropriate for initial human clinical trials.