Stimulating Natural Immunity to Create Potent Protection and Treatment
When properly stimulated, the human immune system is incredibly powerful and has profound potential. Because of their structural similarity to viruses presented in nature, including their particulate nature and repetitive structure, virus-like particles (VLPs) are ideal for stimulating potent immune responses. VLPs can be customized to present any protein antigen, including multiple antibody and T cell targets, making them ideal technologies for the development of both prophylactic and therapeutic vaccines.
Moreover, most of the emerging and re-emerging viruses that pose significant health threats are enveloped viruses, making them prime targets for VBI’s proprietary enveloped virus-like particle (eVLP)
VBI’s Chief Scientific Officer, Dr. David E. Anderson, Ph.D., discusses VBI’s unique approach to vaccine development
Virus-like particle vaccines are a type of subunit vaccine in which only the portions of viruses critical for eliciting an immune response are presented to the body. Only a few antigens self-assemble into VLPs, which limit the number of potential targets for these types of VLPs. Notably, the Hepatitis B antigens are among those that are able to spontaneously form orderly
VBI’s eVLP platform technology expands the list of potentially-viable target indications for VLPs by providing a stable core (Gag Protein) and lipid bilayer, which is the natural way these antigens are presented to the immune system. eVLPs look structurally and morphologically similar to the virus, but there is no infectious material and no chance of infecting
Elicit immune responses comparable to, or better than, natural infection by closely mimicking the structure of the target virus
Ability to rationally design a vaccine or therapeutic by including different antigens and controlling their relative expression
Clinical study data suggest eVLPs have a clean safety profile, and with no infectious material they cannot revert to an infectious state
Electron microscopy images of VBI’s eVLP-derived CMV Vaccine Candidate, captured at The Scripps Institute.
Electron microscopy images of VBI’s eVLP-derived CMV Vaccine Candidate, captured at The Scripps Institute.
Electron microscopy images of VBI’s eVLP-derived CMV Vaccine Candidate, captured at The Scripps Institute.
Our pipeline programs consist of both self-assembling VLP candidates and eVLP candidates: