ConserV Bioscience Limited ("ConserV"), a clinical-stage biotechnology company focused on developing vaccines that protect against endemic and emergent infectious diseases, and eTheRNA immunotherapies NV ("eTheRNA"), a clinical-stage immunotherapy company focused on mRNA antigen delivery and immunostimulation using its ground-breaking TriMix technology, have agreed to collaborate on the development of vaccine candidates for infectious diseases. It is anticipated that by combining ConserV's and eTheRNA's technologies, the new vaccines will induce potent immune responses to protect against highly mutagenic viruses.

This collaboration brings together ConserV's expertise in identifying broadly-protective antigens and eTheRNA's TriMix immunostimulatory mRNA technology and novel lipid nanoparticle ("LNP") encapsulation technologies. Initially, the collaboration will focus on development and evaluation of mRNA vaccine formulations against human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), with the objective of identifying a lead formulation to move forward to clinical development.  The collaboration may also develop other mRNA vaccine formulations based upon ConserV's antigen portfolio.

ConserV's candidate antigens include conserved regions from both internal and external viral proteins containing clusters of reactive T-cell epitopes for multiple human leukocyte antigens (HLAs).  eTheRNA's TriMix contains three mRNA molecules (caTLR4, CD40L and CD70) that combined work to produce a potent, durable T-cell-mediated immune response.  Also, eTheRNA has developed proprietary LNPs to be used as targeted delivery vehicles for mRNA and is developing an intranasal delivery vehicle which, combined with TriMix, aims to induce antigen-specific T-cell-mediated mucosal immunity.

Kimbell Duncan, CEO of ConserV Bioscience, commented: "Our mission is to develop safe and effective vaccines which offer broad protection against infections from viruses that mutate frequently. We are pleased to be working with eTheRNA to develop mRNA-based vaccine formulations of our antigen constructs, in combination with eTheRNA's TriMix and LNP technologies, in order to expand our development pipeline. This follows the recent collaboration with the US Government's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to develop a broad-spectrum coronavirus vaccine."

Steven Powell, CEO of eTheRNA immunotherapies, commented: "The potential of combining eTheRNA's mRNA and LNP technologies with ConserV's antigens is exciting.  The collaboration has the potential to demonstrate the added benefits of our vaccine platform in enhancing immune responses to antigens targeting viruses that mutate regularly."