Capricorn Animal Health – Universal live attenuated influenza vaccine for pigs

Swine Influenza (swine flu) is a respiratory disease of pigs caused by type A influenza virus that regularly causes outbreaks of influenza in pigs.

Signs of swine flu in pigs can include fever, depression, coughing (barking), discharge from the nose or eyes, sneezing, breathing difficulties, eye redness or inflammation, and going off feed. Therefore, farmers are aiming for the influenza vaccination of their animals.

Capricorn started the development of a new, universal swine influenza vaccine. Universal means, that a vaccine shall have the ability to protect against all, also new emerging influenza strains.

The goal is to induce protection for 4-week-old piglets for at least of 6 months after vaccination against influenza H1N1, H1N2 and H3N2 strains or any other emerging influenza viruses.

Our vaccine strain is an attenuated (replication deficient) influenza A virus vector (H1, California 09-like), expressing conserved HA epitopes from the NS1 open reading frame.

We manufactured the drug product as a lyophilized vaccine with storage capacity for at least of 18 months at + 4°C.

Immunisation of piglets is done by a single intranasal vaccination with a spray device.

The mechanism of action is to induce influenza specific antibody and T-cell (CD8+ and CD4+) mediated protective immune responses against a broad variety of influenza viruses.

First trials in piglets have confirmed safety and efficacy of our vaccine candidate:

• Our phenotype is replication deficient, means is unable to grow and reduplicate like a normal virus, hence is safe.
• The lack of symptoms after immunization shows that it is safe, means the piglets do not get sick after vaccination but are still developing immunity against influenza.
• Protection against homologous and heterologous H1 swine influenza pathogenic challenge strains demonstrate the efficacy of our vaccine.

Further testing against heterologous strains is planned. If successful, such vaccine could as well be used for the immunisation of humans.

Capricorn Animal Vaccines – Porcine Circovirus (PCV) Type 2

The Porcine Circovirus (PCV) type 2 is a virus that occurs in pigs. Infection with PCV-2 is one of the most important problems for livestock dealers.

Symptoms include sneezing, coughing, nasal and ocular discharge, fever up to 41 ° C and growth arrest at the age of 4 to 16 weeks. The piglets have thickened, red eyes and black tear marks (conjunctivitis). There are also severe respiratory problems.

The vaccine is based on the universal, attenuated (weakened) influenza live vaccine, gets applied intranasally and stored at + 4 ° C. It is currently in development and testing in animals is still pending.

GPN Vaccines Ltd., Australia – Universal Pneumococcal Vaccine

The Problem:

Streptococcus pneumoniae causes pneumonia, bacteremia, meningitis and otitis media and each year is responsible for 1-2 million deaths worldwide, killing more children than AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined. A pneumococcal polysaccharide-protein conjugate vaccine (Prevnar®) sold by Pfizer, has become a “blockbuster” with annual sales now exceeding US$6.3 billion. However, despite its success Prevnar-13 (the most advanced version of Prevnar®) has major shortcomings in terms of cost, restricted serotype coverage (protecting against just 13 of the 100 known serotypes of S. pneumoniae), and an increasing prevalence of disease caused by pneumococcal serotypes against which Prevnar-13 provides no protection whatsoever. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in the USA has reported that 75%-80% of cases of invasive pneumococcal disease are now caused by serotypes not present in Prevnar-132. Thus, there is an unmet need and a global market for a vaccine capable of protecting against all pneumococci, regardless of strain serotype.

The Solution:

The GPN Vaccines technology is a proprietary engineered strain of S. pneumoniae that lacks capsular polysaccharide, is avirulent and is safe to handle.When cultured and then inactivated with high-energy photons (“gamma-rays”), a whole cell gamma-irradiated pneumococcal vaccine is produced, called “Gamma-PNTM”, that overcomes the key shortcomings of Prevnar-13.

Martin Goetting has been appointed as Director of GPN Vaccines at its inception in September 2017.

For more details please have a look at the fact sheet contact Martin Goetting at  martin@gpnvaccines.com or visit GPN Vaccines at  www.gpnvaccines.com

Capricorn – Universal Influenza Vaccine

The Problem:

Global influenza epidemics emerge seasonally and typically occur during the winter seasons of the northern and southern hemispheres. The WHO estimates that there are 3–5 million cases of severe influenza infections annually, with 250.000–500.000 deaths globally. The re-emergence of a pandemic H1N1 strain in 2009 and the emergence of highly pathogenic avian H5N1 and H7N9 influenza viruses has reaffirmed that influenza remains a global threat to this day.

Current influenza vaccines have no cross protective effects on other subtypes of influenza viruses, which occur due to antigenic shift and drift of the virus. Therefore, the current vaccine needs to contain 3-4 viral subtypes to ensure broader coverage. Due to constant antigenic changes of the virus, current vaccines must be reformulated each year, which causes substantial economic burden. Inaccurate prediction of the annual circulating strain lead to low vaccine efficacy.

The Solution:

Prof. Egorov developed a universal influenza vaccine allowing the efficient protection against various influenza types and subtypes. It is based on a patented platform technology allowing the generation of genetically engineered influenza viruses. A newly developed purification method ensures high viral yields during the production process. The advantages in brief:

• No annual reformulation, strain-update and re-manufacturing required
• Single component (compared to 3-4 components).
• Protection also against unknown emerging viruses including pandemic strains
• Stock-piling for a pandemic possible
• Potential to expand vaccination schedule to 3-5 years or even beyond
• Efficient high yield production technology
• Pain free intranasal application

For more information please get in touch with Martin Götting under martin.goetting@capricorn-consilium.com .

Capricorn – Oncolytic Influenza Virus

We are developing influenza virus-based cancer immunotherapies. Capricorn’ s platform technology allows genetic modification of the influenza virus to be used as safe and efficient therapeutic vaccine against cancer.  The product Elastavir – a novel virus based immuno-oncology therapy, has already demonstrated proof of concept and is ready to enter preclinical studies upon further manufacturing of clinical trial material.

Key Unique Selling Points

Elastavir (EVR100) – a novel oncolytic virus therapy

• High treatment efficacy, especially when combined with other cancer drugs.
• Novel platform technology: roll-out from glioblastoma  to other solid tumors like renal cell carcinoma (RCC), melanoma, colorectal cancer, hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), pancreatic ductal carcinoma, and head and neck cancer.
• High safety profile because of the influenza vaccine vector with a lack of chromosomal integration mechanisms.
• High efficacy:
  – enhanced growth of the virus by the factor of 10 in tumor cell lines.
  – facilitates the immune infiltration into the tumor mass.
  – pharmacological inhibition of Neutrophilic Elastase (NE) markedly reduces tumor burden and metastatic potential. Thus, NE is considered as therapeutic target for cancer treatment (1).
• Low COGS: Easy and robust high yield production
• Application i.v. and/or intratumoral
• Distinguishes from other oncolytic viruses though:
  – pharmacological inhibition of Neutrophilic Elastase (NE)
  – destruction of tumor cells inducing pyroptosis, through the caspase-1 activation
  – modification of tumor microenvironment by eliciting production of bioactive IL-18 in the infected macrophages

For more information please get in touch with Martin Götting under martin.goetting@capricorn-consilium.com .

(1) Lerman I, Hammes SR. Neutrophil elastase in the tumor microenvironment. Steroids. 2018 May;133:96-101. doi: 10.1016/j.steroids.2017.11.006. Epub 2017 Nov 16. Review. PubMed PMID: 29155217; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC5870895.