BravoVax Signed Exclusive License Agreement With NIH on New Generation Broad Spectrum HPV Vaccine Te

BravoVax Co., Ltd (BravoVax) recently signed exclusive license agreement with National Institutes of Health (NIH), U.S. and obtained the exclusive product development, marketing rights and patent license of a new-generation human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine technology.

HPV is the major cause of cervical, vulvar, vaginal, penile, anal, oral and throat cancers. It can also cause genital warts and laryngeal papilloma. Cervical cancer ranks as the 4th most common cancer in females worldwide and as the 2nd in developing countries, with about 528,000 new cases and 26,000 deaths every year.

Cervical cancer can be prevented with HPV vaccines. Since the first HPV vaccine became available in 2006, it has become the most effective way to prevent cervical cancer and other HPV-associated diseases. Up to now more than 170 serotypes of HPV are found, of which at least 15 are recognized as being carcinogenic. Nowadays a number of HPV vaccines based on virus-like particle (VLP) technology have been launched. However, all of these vaccines were developed based on the HPV capsid protein L1, which is serotype-specific and shows no cross-protection. In order to achieve a higher protection of HPV vaccines, bivalent, tetravalent and nonavalent HPV vaccines were developed and currently 11-valent and 14 –valent HPV vaccines are under the IND submission. But all these vaccines are targeted to a limited number of serotypes, and with the increase of immunization of HPV vaccines, the serotypes which are not covered by the vaccines may become predominant and thus decrease the protection efficacy of HPV vaccines.

NIH professor and 2017 Lasker Award winner, John Schiller found that HPV capsid protein L2 is highly conserved, the immunization of L2 protein for one serotype has shown cross-protection against other serotypes of HPV, thus it can be used as the basis for developing a broad spectrum HPV vaccine. Moreover, L2 protein does not need to work in the form of VLP, which can greatly reduce the manufacturing difficulty and cost of the vaccine. Once the broad spectrum HPV vaccine is successfully developed, it can protect against the emerging epidemic HPV serotypes and minimize HPV’s threat to human health.

Dr. Pele Chong, Chief Operating Officer (COO) at BravoVax, said: "The agreement signed with NIH is another significant move after BravoVax obtaining the exclusive license on HPV vaccine technology from a prestigious U.S. university. It shows we have acquired strong protection in intellectual property and technical support on the development of broad-spectrum HPV vaccine. The previous research results obtained by U.S. scientists are quite inspiring and show a good prospect in application. We hope the development of a new-generation HPV vaccine can provide a safer, more convenient and economical way for people to protect against HPV associated diseases."