AuraVax Therapeutics Inc., a Houston, TX-based biotech company developing novel vaccines to help patients defeat debilitating respiratory diseases such as SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19), today announced it has entered into an exclusive license option agreement with the University of Houston with respect to the intellectual property covering a novel intranasal vaccine technology. Under terms of this agreement, AuraVax has the option to exclusively license patents covering this technology.

"We are excited to be collaborating with the University of Houston and look forward to future success by advancing the development of this novel intranasal vaccine platform to address a multitude of respiratory viruses, starting with COVID-19. We plan to stop COVID-19, a respiratory virus, at its point of entry -- the nasal cavity -- and we believe our intranasal platform is a differentiated approach that will lead to a vaccine with increased efficacy to create sustained immunity to COVID-19," said Dr Navin Varadarajan, AuraVax co-founder and M.D. Anderson Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Houston.

"AuraVax, being created by a UH professor, is the ideal partner for us, and what better cause than to advance the creation of a vaccine to COVID-19, arguably the primary challenge facing our generation. The partnership has my wholehearted support," said Amr Elnashai, University of Houston vice president for research and technology transfer.

"The race for more effective ways of vaccinating against COVID-19 and other respiratory diseases has led to a broad and extensive focus on various protective mechanisms of action. Based on pre-clinical work, our technology not only elicits a mucosal immune response but also systemic immunity. We believe AuraVax has a competitive advantage given the immune responses and a supply chain that is well-suited for widespread distribution and self-administration distribution," stated Dr Varadarajan.