PnuVax receives $29.4M Gates Foundation grant

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation awarded PnuVax Inc. (Montreal, Quebec) a grant worth up to $29.4 million to develop its low-cost pneumococcal conjugate vaccine to prevent childhood pneumonia. The three-year grant will support process development, biomanufacturing scale-up and proof-of-concept clinical trials.

Co-founder Jonas Elliott Gerson told BioCentury PnuVax is using its patented conjugation platform technology to manufacture the vaccine, which provides coverage against multiple serotypes of the pneumonia-causing pneumococcus bacterium, at a significantly reduced cost. The company plans to distribute the low-cost vaccine to developing countries via the Global Alliance for Vaccine Immunization (GAVI) and UNICEF...