Singapore: Australian infectious disease therapy and vaccine development company BioDiem has achieved successful result from two programs of work carried out by French partner VIVALIS, confirming the ability of BioDiem's live attenuated influenza virus (LAIV) to grow in VIVALIS' proprietary EB66 cell line.

The next stage of the collaboration between BioDiem and VIVALIS will use known techniques to modify the LAIV virus to demonstrate and optimize the methodology for making a customizable "vector" which could be used by vaccine developers for the development of new vaccines targeting other specific diseases. Priority disease targets include nasopharyngeal carcinoma and respiratory syncytial virus infection.

The results are significant for both companies, as both the BioDiem LAIV virus and the VIVALIS EB66 cell line have been used to produce vaccines that have been tested in successful phase II clinical trials. The resulting human safety data will facilitate a shorter and lower cost path to commercialisation on completion of the next stage of development with VIVALIS.

BioDiem has world-leading in-house expertise in the LAIV virus, and is committed to expanding the value of the technology by developing specific disease treatments. The proposed vector would take advantage of LAIV's safety profile and low toxicity (as the virus backbone is already weakened), intranasal spray delivery, and the ability to be customised to target particular diseases.

VIVALIS undertook this research based on the high potential value of BioDiem's technology in non-influenza vaccine applications, both therapeutic and preventative. This work has confirmed the successful and abundant growth of LAIV in VIVALIS' EB66 cell line. The next step will be the development of a stable LAIV vector technology which uses EB66 as a base platform for growth.

"We're delighted to have emphatically confirmed the feasibility of growth of our LAIV in conjunction with VIVALIS EB66 technology. BioDiem is excited about the use of our in-house viral technology to establish a platform for new vaccine creation via the vector project. We will now move to finalise planning the most effective development program for the vector," said Julie Phillips, BioDiem CEO.

"We are very pleased to report the successes to date of this research project. We are focused on moving EB66 into exciting new indications, such as the therapeutic and preventative vaccines potentially offered by BioDiem's LAIV technology", said Franck Grimaud, CEO, and Majid Mehtali, CSO, co-managers of VIVALIS.

The next steps for BioDiem's vector program will revolve around further development of the vector platform, establishment of a best practice production process, and licensing and manufacturing agreement establishment.