The availability of effective vaccines is seen as the ultimate solution for the global COVID-19 crisis. An ideal vaccine would be expected not only to prevent severe forms of COVID-19, but also to provide prophylaxis against the spread of the virus by inducing herd immunity in the population, necessary for the lifting of lockdown restrictions and for economic recovery. Such vaccines would have to be administered in mass scale and therefore have a very high safety profile.
CEBINA has designed a Coronavirus vaccine that is fundamentally different from the current vaccine efforts already in advanced stages. Current vaccine approaches are mainly based solely on the Spike (S) protein of SARS-CoV-2 and use novel technologies which have not been extensively tested for safety in human studies. CEBINA’s approach in contrast is based on a subunit, recombinant protein-based vaccine approach and designed to avoid the risk of inducing disease-enhancing antibodies.
“The CEBINA team is driven to apply its decades long experience in vaccine discovery and development to find a solution for this global problem through our Coronavirus vaccine project. We apply a more traditional vaccine technology that has proven to be safe and affordable for mass vaccination. Our subunit vaccine is based on vaccine antigens that are predicted to induce protective immunity in current and future Coronovirus outbreaks.” – said Dr Eszter Nagy, MD PhD, CEO, CSO and founder of CEBINA. “Our efforts which are supported by this current investment will be greatly strengthened by our collaboration with Prof. Ferenc Jakab (virologist and Head of the BSL4 Laboratory in the Szentágothai Research Centre) at the University of Pécs, Hungary, which has already generated very promising results in our drug repurposing projects, to be announced shortly“- concluded Dr. Nagy.
“We are grateful to the Blom Family Office who is a core investor in CEBINA and in CEBINA-incubated biotech companies, for providing funds in times of a worldwide economic crisis. The trust of the Blom Family Office has placed in CEBINA and its team is an additional incentive for delivering results by the end of the year. Our Coronavirus vaccine project also shows the creative capability of the CEBINA research team to innovate and provide original solutions to global problems. We believe the CEBINA model provides for an environment an investor feels motivated and secure to invest in early-stage projects.” – commented Wolfgang Friedl, COO of CEBINA.
CEBINA GmbH (www.cebina.eu) is a Vienna-based biotech incubator and accelerator company (founded in 2018) providing facilities and diverse services to its resident companies in business development, product development, management, operations, legal and financing. The mission of CEBINA is to nurture early-stage life sciences start-up companies and projects that have the potential of creating new medicines and cutting-edge technologies. This mixed incubator/accelerator model generates early momentum, accelerated maturation and increased survival rates. CEBINA actively seeks early projects for feasibility evaluations and also develops projects internally with the aim to create spin-off companies. The founder of CEBINA, Dr. Eszter Nagy, MD PhD and the core team (previously with Intercell AG, Arsanis Inc, Eveliqure Biotechnologies GmbH, MedImmune/AstraZeneca) have decades long experience in biotechnology, product development, mainly in the field of infectious diseases and vaccines and forming innovative biotech companies.
