Vaxess Technologies

What a jammed packed week @ Bio! Great to catch up with colleagues and meet new ones innovating in vaccines and GLP-1 spaces. Special thanks to BARDA BAN, BioLabs, Start2 Group, and Advise Connect Inspire, LLC for the opportunity to join the panel at the VITAL – A BARDA BAN Hub launch(Vaccine Innovation & Therapeutics Acceleration Launchpad). I really appreciated the nuggets of wisdom and advice from co-panelists, Johannes Fruehauf (Mission BioCapital), Mary Larkin (BARDA BAN), Saroj Regmi, PhD (NCI SBIR), and expertly moderated by Marc Filerman (Start2). This was the launch event for VITAL and was kicked off with energizing words from Dawn O'Connell (Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response) and Ashim Subedee (BARDA DRIVe). I had the pleasure of discussing Vaxess Technologies' efforts in this space, notably with our partners AstraZeneca in pandemic flu. Amazing to see the number of entrepreneurs, scientists, investors, and agencies supporting early stage innovation in this space.

I wanted to share a couple of thoughts on today’s Wall Street Journal article, Vaccine Startups Navigate Tight Financing Market — https://lnkd.in/ekYEC9sw First, I’d like to thank The Wall Street Journal Venture Capital Reporter Brian Gormley for taking the time to speak with me, and highlighting Vaxess Technologies’s success in raising funding and  forming valuable partnerships, such as one we recently announced with AstraZeneca. Second, I’m glad to see The Wall Street Journal shine a light on the recent Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO) report, The State of Innovation in Vaccines and Prophylactic Antibodies for Infectious Diseases, which highlights the need for more public and private investment in vaccine development. You can read the full report here — https://lnkd.in/eZdUqR-Y. For me, the most notable stat was that between 2013-2022, only 3.4% of venture capital raised by biopharmaceutical companies went to companies with “infectious disease vaccine programs.” Phyllis Arthur, Senior Vice President for Infectious Disease and Emerging Science Policy at BIO, sums up the need for more investment perfectly in the concluding paragraph of the press release announcing the report, saying,  "Vaccines have led to a 100% reduction in the risk of death for a host of devastating diseases. Yet many common infections don't have any vaccines in clinical development. That needs to change. We need to pursue both scientific and policy changes that can help spur investment in these vital products.” At Vaxess, we’re humbled to be an example of a company that has successfully raised funding in this very competitive space, and our hope is that this report will spur discussion that will lead to more funding for vaccine development — both the vaccines themselves, and novel approaches to vaccine delivery. Not only is it a win for patients, but the payoff for investors has been very strong in recent years.

JPM 2024 was an adventure, with the majority of deal news centering around the antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) space. Impressive acquisitions of Ambrx, ImmunoGen, Inc., and Orum Therapeutics's ORM-6151 as well as a $5B+ deal between Merck and Daichi Sankyo headlined the news. Labiotech.eu wrote a great summary of the madness in the space in December. The irony? The first successful ADC clinical trial was conducted in 1983, 40 years ago! The concept was clever, took decades to refine, and appeared to finally hit its stride, hence the lemming effect. And what happened less than two weeks post-JPM? Gilead Sciences's lead ADC, Trodelvy, fails a Ph III trial. According to STAT, this "raised questions around ADC's". Seriously? After $20B+ in deals over a 3-4 month period? My takeaway? Breakthrough products take great science, patience, money (lots of it), and some good luck. Let big pharma chase the hype. We'll focus on launching game-changing products.