Omniose, a preclinical stage biotechnology company, today announced an exclusive collaboration agreement with AstraZeneca for the search for potential vaccines against bacterial pathogens, as part of AstraZeneca's early-stage vaccine and immunotherapy pipeline.

Under the terms of the agreement, AstraZeneca will have exclusive rights to Omniosis' exclusive bioconjugation platform for a period of up to three years, which will make it possible to develop high-quality vaccines against a set of bacterial pathogens, including multidrug-resistant "superbacteria" that until now could not be treated by other methods.

Conjugate vaccines are an effective form of immunization, but their use is limited because of their complex chemical process; indeed, they require bacterial polysaccharides to be attached to carrier proteins. Bioconjugation significantly streamlines the manufacturing process compared to chemical conjugation and can produce a better quality vaccine.

Christian Harding, scientific director and co-founder of Omniose, added: "Our synthetic biology platform is the most extensive enzymatic bioconjugation system, allowing virtually any bacterial polysaccharide to be transferred to modified carrier proteins. »

Mark Esser, Vice-President of AstraZeneca's early-stage R&D department on vaccines and immunotherapies, said: "At a time when serious bacterial infections are becoming increasingly resistant to commonly used antibiotics, the development of alternative preventive interventions is essential. As part of our ambition to provide lasting immunity to millions of people, we are delighted to begin this scientific collaboration with Omniose to explore the role that this new bioconjugate platform could have in the development of vaccines against bacterial pathogens. »

Timothy Cooke, CEO of Omniose, added: "AstraZeneca is an expert in exploiting next-generation technologies to advance research on infectious diseases, and we are proud to collaborate with it to realize the full potential of our conjugate vaccine platform. »