AZ boosts vaccine capabilities with Omniose buy

AstraZeneca has bought a US biotech developing polysaccharide conjugate vaccines for serious bacterial infections, Omniose, for an undisclosed sum.

St Louis, Missouri-based Omniose has developed a proprietary bioconjugation platform that has been put through its paces by AZ in a three-year research collaboration that the US biotech said had been "productive."

While AZ has a strong track record in vaccines – its most prominent product being the viral vector-based COVID-19 vaccine developed with the University of Oxford – buying Omniose gives it a stronger footing in conjugate vaccines, which are made by attaching bacterial polysaccharide antigens to engineered carrier proteins.

While conventional conjugate vaccines often need complex chemical processes to manufacture, in bioconjugation bacterial cells are used to simultaneously produce and link polysaccharides to carrier proteins. That simplifies the process, making it quicker and more efficient, and can produce higher-quality candidates, according to Omniose.

The US biotech says its platform also removes any restrictions on the types of bacterial polysaccharides that can be incorporated into its vaccines, extending the range of bacterial threats it can address.

Omniose's co-founder, Mario Feldman, is a pioneer in the field of bioconjugation whose work has been used to develop vaccine candidates for Shigella and Klebsiella pneumoniae, currently being tested in clinical trials by GSK, as well as an Escherichia coli shot developed by Johnson & Johnson and Sanofi, which reached phase 3 testing before being discontinued last year.

In their alliance, AZ and Omniose worked on a number of bacterial pathogen projects, including multidrug-resistant "superbugs" previously intractable by other methods. Previously, Omniose was awarded a $3 million grant from the NIH to develop a vaccine against Group B Streptococcus (GBS), a leading cause of invasive bacterial infections in newborns and older adults, and a $3.6 million NIH grant for a K pneumoniae candidate.

"Omniose's bioconjugation platform represents a differentiated approach to engineering conjugate vaccines and strengthens our ability to develop novel vaccines against serious bacterial infections," commented Benjamin Moutier, head of infectious disease at AZ.

"Building on the strong scientific collaboration between our teams, we look forward to advancing these programs and realising the potential of this technology for patients."

Under the terms of the agreement, Omniose has become a wholly owned subsidiary of AZ and a part of the company's infectious disease unit.