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 Under the deal, VaxEquity, a startup founded by Imperial
vaccinologist Robin Shattock, could receive up to $195 million if
certain milestones are met, in addition to royalties on approved
drugs and equity investment from AstraZeneca and life sciences
investor Morningside Ventures.
AstraZeneca already produces an adenoviral vector COVID-19 vaccine,
and emphasised the potential of the self-amplifying RNA (saRNA)
technology in novel therapeutic programmes beyond the coronavirus
pandemic.
"This collaboration with VaxEquity adds a promising new platform to
our drug discovery toolbox," said AstraZeneca research chief Mene
Pangalos.
The technology works in a similar way to the messenger RNA (mRNA)
vaccines made by Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna.
However, a self-amplifying RNA vaccine not only encodes the
instructions for the host cell to make a coronavirus protein, but
makes lots of copies of the RNA containing those instructions,
meaning doses can be smaller and cheaper.
"It's a bit like having a manufacturing facility, and instead of
having one copy of the recipe, you have multiple copies that you can
hand round to multiple production lines within the cell to produce
more protein," Imperial's Shattock told Reuters. "So that's why it
has that opportunity to use lower doses."
Imperial's COVID-19 vaccine is being retooled to produce a more
consistent immune response with an eye on future coronavirus
variants.
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 AstraZeneca, under the deal,
has the option to collaborate on 26 drug targets
for use against other therapeutic areas like
cancers and rare genetic diseases.
"We believe self-amplifying RNA, once optimised, will allow us to
target novel pathways not amenable to traditional drug discovery
across our therapy areas of interest," Pangalos said.
U.S. companies Gritstone bio and Arcturus also are developing saRNA
COVID-19 vaccines.
Shattock said safety data had been encouraging from initial trials
of its COVID-19 vaccine, released in July ahead of peer review, and
that Phase I results of its refined vaccine would be ready early
next year.
"The reason we were slower was because we were coming from an
academic setting," he said. "If we had this relationship (with
AstraZeneca) at the beginning of 2020, we might have been faster."
(Reporting by Alistair Smout; Additional reporting by Christine
Soares; Editing by Bill Berkrot)
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