Meissa Vaccines Presented at The White House Summit on the Future of COVID-19 Vaccines

REDWOOD CITY, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Meissa Vaccines, Inc. (“Meissa”), a clinical-stage biotechnology company developing vaccines to prevent viral respiratory infections, today announced that Martin Moore, Ph.D., cofounder and Chief Scientific Officer of Meissa, spoke on a panel entitled, “Innovation in Vaccine Delivery,” at the Summit on the Future of COVID-19 Vaccines hosted by The White House Office for COVID-19 Response. The Summit took place July 26th at The White House campus in Washington D.C.

“It’s clear from nonstop COVID-19 outbreaks that current vaccines and boosters, while preventing serious disease, are not doing enough to prevent infection and interrupt chains of transmission. To do that, we need to bring forward new vaccine technologies, including intranasal vaccines that stimulate mucosal immunity to block SARS-CoV-2 infection and transmission,” said Dr. Moore. “Our current preclinical and clinical data indicate Meissa’s live, recombinant, intranasal COVID-19 vaccine can stimulate a strong systemic response as well as a strong nasal IgA antibody response with a preferred safety profile.”

Dr. Moore continued, “Our intranasal COVID-19 vaccine was built on the company’s AttenuBlock platform and is designed to be appropriately attenuated, genetically stable, optimized to drive robust, broad, and durable immunity. Mucosal vaccines are within reach, and we look forward to continuing clinical development so that we can contribute to global control of the disease and virus spread.”

About Meissa’s Intranasal Recombinant COVID-19 Vaccine Candidate

Meissa’s MV-014-212, the company’s intranasal recombinant live attenuated COVID-19 vaccine, is currently in a Phase 1 study in adults (ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT04798001). Meissa’s needle-free, intranasal COVID-19 vaccine is designed for global use to block transmission, provide durable protection, and control SARS-CoV-2 spread and variants. Previously reported preliminary clinical data from this study show Meissa’s vaccine stimulated a strong systemic and nasal IgA antibody response similar to that seen after SARS-CoV-2 infection, with no serious adverse events reported and no infectious vaccine virus detected. Previously reported preclinical data demonstrate Meissa’s intranasal COVID-19 vaccine generated both mucosal and systemic antibodies and was highly protective against wild-type SARS-CoV-2 challenge in non-human primates (NHPs).¹

About AttenuBlock^TM: Meissa’s Intranasal Vaccine Platform

Meissa’s live attenuated intranasal vaccines are built on the company’s proprietary AttenuBlock platform to achieve appropriate attenuation, genetic stability, and optimized immunity. Injectable vaccines typically induce only serum (IgG) antibodies that circulate in the blood and are important for preventing serious lung disease. Intranasal vaccines generate serum IgG and mucosal (IgA) antibodies in the nasal cavity, which are essential for blocking infection and transmission of respiratory viruses like RSV and SARS-CoV-2. Meissa’s vaccine platform and intranasal vaccine strategy are uniquely designed to confer mucosal immunity that will likely reduce transmission, if compared to injectable vaccines, provide long-lasting protection, and be a part of the global solution to controlling respiratory viruses.

About Meissa Vaccines

Meissa Vaccines was founded with a mission to protect people everywhere from life-threatening respiratory viruses and a commitment to develop innovative technologies capable of delivering effective vaccines at a global scale. Meissa is advancing live attenuated vaccine candidates against respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19), and human metapneumovirus (hMPV). These vaccine candidates have been developed using the company’s proprietary AttenuBlock^TM synthetic biology platform, which includes codon deoptimization and technologies exclusively licensed from Emory University and Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta. Meissa’s live attenuated vaccine candidates are formulated to be delivered as a single, intranasal, adjuvant-free, needle-free dose and are designed to generate a strong, durable immune response to prevent infection and disease. Meissa is headquartered in Redwood City, Calif. For more information, please visit www.meissavaccines.com.

¹Tioni, et al. “One mucosal administration of a live attenuated recombinant COVID-19 vaccine protects nonhuman primates from SARS-CoV-2.” NJP Vaccines (in press). Posted on biorxiv on August 6, 2021: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.07.16.452733.

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