- Vaccitech plc is a medtech company developing vaccines and immunotherapies for infectious diseases and cancer, such as hepatitis B, HPV and prostate cancer.
- The company was founded in 2016 as a University spin-off by Sarah Gilbert and Adrian V. S. Hill at The Jenner Institute, University of Oxford.
- Vaccitech is creating novel vaccines that elicit strong responses from helper and cytotoxic T-cells.
About Vaccitech
Vaccitech is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company engaged in the discovery and development of novel immunotherapeutics and vaccines for the treatment and prevention of infectious diseases and cancer. The company’s proprietary platform comprises proprietary modified simian adenoviral vectors, known as ChAdOx1 and ChAdOx2, as well as the well-validated Modified Vaccinia Ankara, or MVA, boost vector, both with demonstrable safety profiles and without the ability to replicate in humans.
The combination of a ChAdOx prime treatment with subsequent MVA boost has consistently generated significantly higher magnitudes of CD8+ T cells compared with other technologies and approaches. The company has a broad pipeline of both clinical and preclinical stage therapeutic programs in solid tumours and viral infections and prophylactic viral vaccine programs.
Vaccitech has been financed and supported by Google Ventures (GV), Sequoia Capital, GeneMatrix, Liontrust Asset Management, Korea Investment Partners and Oxford Sciences Innovation (OSI).
More from MedTech
- How AI is Revolutionising Brain Surgery and Other Medical Practices
- Wearable Health Devices: A Step into the Future
- Dr Owain Rhys Hughes: ‘3 vital lessons I’ve learned as a healthtech founder’
- How MedTech Can Help Tackle The NHS Backlog
- How HealthTech Can Help Relieve Pressure On The NHS And Empower People To Take Control Of Their Own Health
- David Hancock: Why Interoperability In Healthcare Is Vital To Relieving Pressure On The NHS
- Cera Launches Flu Tracker And Treatment System To Protect Older People and The NHS This Winter
- Flow Neuroscience Receives Series A Funding To Make Self-Managed Medical Device Available Globally
Vaccitech and Covid-19
In early 2020, Vaccitech and the University of Oxford co-invented a vaccine for COVID-19 using the ChAdOx platform.
In July 2020, it was reported that people in Brazil, South Africa and the US had been recruited to populate the vaccine trials. Vaccitech scientists reported in The Lancet a single-blind, randomised controlled trial in five trial sites in the UK of a chimpanzee adenovirus-vectored vaccine (ChAdOx1 nCoV-19) expressing the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein. Several subjects needed prophylactic paracetamol to minimise their adverse reactions.
The results seemed to support large-scale evaluation of this candidate vaccine in an ongoing phase 3 programme.
