The International Vaccine Institute (IVI), in South Korea, has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Lemonex, a company specialising in RNA gene therapy development, and agreed to seek cooperation in research and development.

IVI and Lemonex have agreed to join forces to introduce DegradaBALL drug delivery technology to the development of infectious disease vaccines and advance vaccine development by using IVI’s extensive expertise in all areas of vaccine development.

The two organisations plan to utilise Lemonex's expertise in vaccine development and drug delivery platform, and rapidly develop a safe and effective mRNA vaccine through mutual cooperation by using IVI's extensive experience in clinical development and epidemiology.

LEM-mR203, which is being developed by Lemonex, is an mRNA vaccine candidate against COVID-19. The mRNA vaccine uses DegradaBALL, a next-generation drug delivery platform technology developed by Lemonex, in lieu of the existing lipid nanoparticles (LNP).

The mRNA vaccine adopting DegradaBALL is designed to minimise systemic side effects by increasing the drug residual rate at the administration site compared to the lipid nanoparticle delivery system, and improve the stability of mRNA to induce long-term mRNA expression. However, since it does not require a special process, it reportedly has considerable competitive advantages in terms of production facilities and cost.