You can read our press release here: (12/12)

www.businesswire.com/news/home/20...

I presented on PopVax’s ongoing efforts to develop broadly-protective mRNA vaccines against influenza and other pathogens at the BARDA Vaccine Innovation Forum held on January 13 in San Francisco. Here’s BARDA’s press release about the prize: (11/12)

www.medicalcountermeasures.gov/newsroom/202...

We believe broadly-protective flu vaccines are vital to save lives each flu season and prevent potential future pandemics. This work would not have been possible without generous support for our vaccine platform and open-source COVID-19 vaccine from Vitalik Buterin (@vitalik.ca) & Balvi. (10/12)

We are also developing vaccines that cover potential pandemic strains such as H5N1, which appears to already be undergoing mutations that may allow it to replicate more easily in mammalian cells, creating an increased risk of transmission to and between humans. (9/12)

Current seasonal flu vaccines can often be ineffective – in the past decade, their efficacy in a given flu season has fallen to as low as 6% due to strain mutation. PopVax is developing broadly-protective flu vaccines intended to reliably provide 80%+ efficacy. (8/12)

Formulation into a microarray patch also enhances mRNA vaccine thermostability, broadening global accessibility. PopVax & LTS are working to advance the self-administered patch-delivered seasonal influenza vaccine into preclinical studies in the coming months. (7/12)

Imagine getting a vaccine delivered to your home on demand via DoorDash or Zomato, and administering it yourself by applying a small patch to your upper arm that can be discarded in 15 minutes – no need to go to a pharmacy or clinic and wait in line to be injected. (6/12)

We are working with Germany’s LTS Lohmann Therapie-Systeme AG, a leading player in transdermal drug delivery, to deliver our flu vaccine using their self-administrable microarray patch delivery system. (5/12)

The vaccine is built on our mRNA-encoded immunogen display architecture that boosts the magnitude and breadth of the elicited strain-specific antibody response, and our lipid nanoparticle (LNP) platform built on PopVax-designed novel ionizable lipids. (4/12)

Our influenza vaccine candidate shows as much as 250x greater strain-specific antibody response in mice in comparison with a leading approved influenza vaccine. It also elicits a broader antibody response, including against pandemic H5N1 influenza, a rising threat. (3/12)

The Patch Forward Prize is a multi-stage $50M competition launched by BARDA to accelerate the development of microneedle patch-based RNA vaccines for COVID-19, seasonal influenza, and pandemic influenza. (2/12)

You can read more of what I’ve written about the emergence of H5N1 and the utility of vaccines that elicit a broader immune response here:

chronicles.popvax.com/p/potent-bro...

We are eager to work with investors, industry partners, governments, and regulators to accelerate the development and clinical testing of our influenza vaccines. If this is of interest to you, please reach out to us via email at flu25@popvax.com.

We also have an H5N1 influenza vaccine candidate that elicits robust antibody responses against both the same strain of H5N1 that it is based on as well as other distinct H5N1 strains in mice.

A vaccine such as ours could be used primarily as a seasonal influenza vaccine of the kind that hundreds of millions of people take each year, but has the potential to additionally provide some protection against H5N1 and other emerging strains which current influenza vaccines do not.

Our vaccine candidate also elicits as much as 250x greater antibody response in mice against seasonal strains compared with a seasonal influenza vaccine from the global market leader.

At PopVax (@popvax.com) we’ve been developing broadly-protective vaccines against influenza, and are already seeing signs of potential utility against H5N1. Our seasonal influenza candidate elicits a potent antibody response against H5N1 despite not containing an H5N1 antigen.

While we all certainly hope that H5N1 influenza doesn’t mutate into a strain that causes a pandemic in humans, there is a distinct and unnerving possibility that it does, as Alex Tabarrok (marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevo...) and commentary in @nejm.org have recently noted.