Enesi Pharma Secures Innovate UK Funding to Enable Scalable Aseptic Manufacturing of ImplaVax®-enabled Solid Dose Viral Vector Vaccines

OXFORD, England, Sept. 24, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Enesi Pharma ("Enesi"), the innovative pharmaceutical company developing unique injectable solid dose drug-device vaccine products, is delighted to announce that it has secured substantial funding from Innovate UK, the UK's innovation agency, under the Biomedical Catalyst 2019 Round 1: Early and Late Stage Awards Initiative. The award of £870,419 will co-fund a major new £1.24 million project to develop a scalable aseptic manufacturing process for live or live-attenuated viral vectors for use with Enesi's ImplaVax® needle-free solid dose technology.

David Hipkiss, Enesi Pharma CEO, commented:

"This substantial grant from Innovate UK will enable us to address a crucial challenge in the development of viral vector vaccines into a viable delivery format and to access the myriad benefits of our unique ImplaVax® needle-free solid dose platform.

"Viral vector vaccines represent a rapidly growing area of interest as they form the foundation of multiple new candidates being developed by many companies to target defined and high-value opportunities in infectious diseases, emergent threat pathogens, allergies and oncology. We have already initiated exploratory studies on two of the most widely used viral vectors in development across the pharmaceutical industry – adenovirus and vaccinia virus – working in collaboration with leading international partners, including the University of Oxford, Sementis and Geovax.

"The Innovate UK grant not only will support the advancement of these programs but crucially its success will pave the way for Enesi to capture future opportunities addressing a wide range of global public health concerns."

About Enesi Pharma

Enesi Pharma is an innovative pharmaceutical company developing new products with the potential to transform performance and delivery of vaccines and make a material impact on global healthcare.

The company's primary focus is the development of novel solid dose vaccines against a range of infectious and other select diseases, working in partnership with global companies, government agencies, leading academic institutions and non-governmental organisations.

Enesi's ImplaVax® formulation and device technologies offer significant potential benefits for patients, care givers, healthcare professionals and payers through enhanced effectiveness, safety, ease of use, reliability and stability, and are supported by a strong patient preference over a standard needle and syringe.

The Company has established multiple collaborations to evaluate opportunities for ImplaVax^®-enabled vaccines for a range of infectious diseases and allergies, including with BARDA DRIVe*, the University of Oxford, the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, Public Health England, Sementis and GeoVax.

Enesi's experienced leadership team has a proven track record in the successful development and commercialisation of innovative products delivering high value outcomes for all stakeholders.

For more information visit www.enesipharma.com or follow Enesi on Twitter at www.twitter.com/enesi_pharma.

About Innovate UK

Innovate UK drives productivity and economic growth by supporting businesses to develop and realise the potential of new ideas.

We connect businesses to the partners, customers and investors that can help them turn ideas into commercially successful products and services and business growth.

We fund business and research collaborations to accelerate innovation and drive business investment into R&D.

Our support is available to businesses across all economic sectors, value chains and UK regions. Innovate UK is part of UK Research and Innovation.

For more information visit www.innovateuk.ukri.org

CONTACTS

Enesi Pharma
David Hipkiss, CEO
Tel: +44-(0)-796-870-7072
Email: david.hipkiss@enesipharma.com 

Citigate Dewe Rogerson (for Enesi Pharma)
Mark Swallow, Nathaniel Dahan
Tel: +44-(0)-20-76-389-571
Email: enesipharma@citigatedewerogerson.com 

Innovate UK
PJ Taylor
Tel: +44-(0)-795-022-5001
Email: pj.taylor@ukri.org

*This project has been funded in whole or in part with US Federal funds from the Department of Health and Human Services; Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response; Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, DRIVe, under this contract.