AmVac and Taiwan National Health Research Institute Cooperate to Develop Nasal Spray Avian Flu Vaccine

AmVac AG (Zug, Switzerland) has formed a collaboration with the National Health Research Institutes in Taiwan to develop a nasal spray vaccine against the H5N1 avian influenza.

The vaccine will use AmVac’s adjuvant, MALP-2, which is suitable for absorption through mucosal membranes.

Up to now, the development of a flu vaccine spray has been hampered by the lack of a safe adjuvant capable of enhancing strong mucosal immunity. AmVac has acquired exclusive rights to the adjuvant MALP-2 (Macrophage Activating Lipopeptide-2), developed by C. Guzman at the Helmholtz Center for Infection Research in Braunschweig, for all infectious diseases worldwide. This synthetic, well-tolerated class of adjuvants acts as a toll-like receptor agonist in activating cells of the immune system and thus at central sites in mediation of the immune response. Preliminary results in mice have revealed that the pandemic H5N1 flu vaccine combined with MALP-2 elicits flu-specific antibodies following intranasal immunization.