Combining expertise in antigen selection and a proprietary antigen delivery technology

T-Cell vaccine platform

Immune Targeting System’s T-cell vaccines are globally relevant (work on all ethnic populations), commercially scalable, adjuvant free vaccines able to target all potential viral strains within each disease. The Company brings together 3 key vaccine assets;

1. Fluoropeptide delivery system: this involves conjugating fluorocarbon molecules on to the ends of highly selected antigens. The net effect is to promote the formation of nanoparticles. When administered into the body, these fluoropeptides promote robust immune responses without requiring booster chemicals called adjuvants which have the potential to be toxic in humans.
2. Antigen selection: The key outcome of the antigen selection is to select antigens which are highly conserved across all viral strains (mutant variants) and instructs all ethnic populations to produce specific T-cells (CD4 and CD8 T-cells) when vaccinated. Antigens are parts of a virus (or other pathogen) to which the body’s immune system responds against. The company utilises multiple methods to identify and select final vaccine antigens, including a proprietary bioinformatics (computer based) platform and laboratory based methods using human blood samples to “reverse engineer” successful immune responses.
3. Manufacturing expertise: All this great science would be worthless if one couldn’t make and store the vaccines for long periods. Therefore at the point of innovation and through the vaccine development process we focus on ensuring our vaccines are commercially scalable and stable. There is a real art and science to this the ITS team bring these skills and expertise to bare on vaccine production. The great feature of fluoropeptides is they are made using industry standard synthetic chemistry by any number of manufacturers worldwide. Most commercially available vaccines today are manufactured using highly sensitive and temperamental biological production methods with limitations on production capacity.

Influenza vaccine program

The lead development candidate is a universal influenza vaccine targeting all potential seasonal and pandemic influenza strains. When one looks closely at the influenza vaccine market we see some major issues and problems which conventional influenza vaccines are unable to address. Again, new vaccine technologies are required and ITS influenza vaccine is one such vaccine able to address these needs and problems.

Firstly there are large at-risk populations and market segments currently underserved by conventional influenza vaccines such as the elderly, chronically ill and young children. Interestingly, evidence is emerging that T-cell immunity is also required for a more complete protection in these at-risk populations. Unfortunately, existing conventional vaccines are not as effective at generating this type of immunity as we would all hope. Hence the need for new vaccine technologies able to promote better T-cell immunity.

Secondly, new vaccine technologies able to target both seasonal and pandemic influenza strains are required. This would ease the logistical constraints on global vaccine supply. Conventional influenza vaccines lose their effectiveness as the virus mutates (antigenic drift and shift). It only takes a few small changes to the surface of the virus to render a vaccine ineffective. This necessitates a logistically complex process whereby the WHO and other Governments forecast which influenza strain will be important for the next flu season. Then the job of producing 350m vaccine doses must commence. In reality this complete process takes the vaccine industry circa 12 months to complete.
Imagine how the world would cope if a pandemic flu virus emerged…? The truth is from a vaccine supply stand point – not very well. Here is a worst case scenario:

(Hypothetically) Human to human highly pathogenic avian flu transmission is confirmed in the not too distant future – the sort that kills 60% of people it infects. Typically influenza infects 20% of the world population each year. That’s 1.2 billion people and 720m deaths as it sweeps around the world. World Governments and industry frantically scramble resources to identify the causative strain and develop the virus strain clones so the vaccine companies could produce the vaccine. Currently, the majority of flu vaccine is produced in special hens’ eggs which then need to be laid by hens (each egg produces 1-2 vaccine doses). How long is this going to take? There are 6 plus billion people on the planet and yet we have logistical problems producing the required 350m doses per year for seasonal flu. It doesn’t take long to see the scale of the problem if the worst case scenario were to happen.

A pandemic influenza vaccine must be produced after the pandemic strain emerges because it must be “matched” exactly with the circulating pandemic strain. Even if a pandemic emerged the virus would then rapidly mutate as human immune systems began to target it. This leaves us always one-step behind the virus. It means Governments can’t genuinely create long-term stockpiles of vaccine to protect their citizens. This is why new vaccine technologies are required that can target all influenza strains because it would permit Government vaccine stockpiling, even if these vaccines turned a deadly disease into a less deadly disease at least Governments and people of the world would have some solution. That is the potential of ITS universal influenza vaccine.

123