Bellinzona – Schlieren, March 2021
MV Biotherapeutics SA (from now on “MV Bio”), a Swiss microbiome biotherapeutics company and Malcisbo AG (from now on “Malcisbo”), a Swiss company developing carbohydrate-based vaccines are proud to announce a collaboration after winning an Innosuisse grant.
Malcisbo and MV Bio have previously signed a contract, which gives Malcisbo the exclusive right to use MV Bio proprietary Apyrase technology platform for their Campylobacter and Actinobacillus pleuropneumoniae (APP) vaccine candidates.
The goal is to enhance the adaptive mucosal immune response against Campylobacter spp. in the chicken gut and against APP in the respiratory tract of pigs.
Chicken meat contaminated with Campylobacter is the most important source of human Campylobacteriosis.
APP is one of the most important agents responsible for porcine respiratory disease, causing huge economic losses. Strong experimental evidences in mice indicate a function of Apyrase in enhancing mucosal immunity in the gut. The Innosuisse supported project will allow testing Apyrase within the framework of Malcisbo’s carbohydrate-based vaccines in chicken and pigs.
About MV BioTherapeutics
MV BioTherapeutics is a Swiss microbiome biotherapeutics company founded in 2018 as a spin-off from the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB) in Bellinzona.
The patent protected Apyrase platform comprises a unique mechanism to generate protective immune response against enteric infections and to shape the intestinal microbiota in medical conditions with two applications:
- ApyraVax® is a technology platform for live attenuated oral vaccines eliciting protective mucosal responses against enteric pathogens. The first application is a vaccine for Clostridioides difficile infection, a disease that is causing hundreds of thousands of casualties every year and generating huge medical costs.
- ApyraMed® is a live biotherapeutic that has been validated in pre-clinical studies as an enhancer of immune checkpoint blockage in cancer immunotherapy and as a modulator of antibiotic-induced dysbiosis.
Research experiments and preclinical trials are performed in the research lab hosted at IRB.
About Malcisbo AG (www.malcisbo.com)
Malcisbo AG was founded in 2010 as a spin-off from the ETH in Zürich.
The company is developing vaccines based on glycoengineering techniques with the goal to reduce antimicrobials in animal husbandry and reducing the risk of antibiotic resistance development. This approach meets the recommendation of the European Food Safety Authorities (EMA) to implement measures to reduce the antibiotic usage in the farming animal industry.
Currently the focus is on 2 targets:
- A Campylobacter vaccine to prevent the colonization of the chicken gut to make chicken meat safe. For this project there is a collaboration with an industrial partner.
- An APP (Actinobacillus pleuropneumoniae) vaccine for pigs. Due to the lack of highly protective vaccines, APP is currently controlled by antibiotics. An effective vaccine would substantially reduce the use of antibiotics which is a need of the hour.
Malcisbo’s research labs are based in the Biotechnopark Schlieren ZH.