Meissa Vaccines Secures $3.4M Seed Funding to Advance RSV Vaccine into Clinical Trials

VCBeat (WeChat Official Account: vcbeat) learned from foreign media that on March 27, U.S. local time, Meissa Vaccines, headquartered in San Francisco, California, announced the completion of a $3.4 million seed funding round. The proceeds will be used to further develop its respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccine and advance it into clinical trials. This round of financing involved numerous undisclosed individual investors.

Notably, prior to this seed funding round, Meissa Vaccines received Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) funding from the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), which encourages Meissa Vaccines to continue its vaccine research and development.

It is reported that Meissa Vaccines has made full preparations for the clinical trials of its RSV vaccine, having completed the FDA pre-IND meeting and prepared the necessary clinical trial materials. In addition, Meissa Vaccines has recruited two industry veterans, Kenneth Kelley and William Daly, to join its Board of Directors.

Meissa Vaccines is a vaccine development company that leverages proprietary synthetic biology and reverse genetics technologies (exclusively licensed from Emory University) to develop safe and effective live vaccines with enhanced immunogenicity compared to natural pathogens. Meissa Vaccines was co-founded in 2014 by Dr. Marty Moore and Dr. Roderick Tang, a vaccine manufacturing expert.

Dr. Marty Moore serves as the Company’s Chief Executive Officer. He was formerly an Associate Professor at Emory University and Director of the Center for Childhood Infections and Vaccines (CCIV) at Emory. He developed a reverse genetics platform technology for RSV, leveraging synthetic biology to prepare candidate vaccines. To date, Dr. Moore has published more than 70 articles in virology and is a co-inventor of 20 RSV-related technologies.

Dr. Roderick Tang serves as the Company’s Chief Scientific Officer. Previously, he was a researcher at the vaccine startup Aviron, where he contributed to the development of an RSV clinical candidate. He later led RSV vaccine research and development at MedImmune for 11 years, facilitating the successful submission of three Investigational New Drug (IND) applications. To date, Dr. Tang has published more than 30 papers in virology and is a co-inventor on six patents for live viral vaccines.

Meissa Vaccines is developing a respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccine using synthetic biology and reverse genetics technologies to recombine RSV genes through codon deoptimization and conformational key antigens. Currently, the company’s lead clinical candidate for its RSV vaccine is MV-012-968, which exhibits low toxicity in human airway cells and can efficiently neutralize mucosal antibodies in the body within a specific timeframe.

“This is a $6 billion RSV market,” said William Daly. “RSV represents the largest remaining commercial opportunity in the infectious disease vaccine sector. The greatest unmet medical need in pediatric respiratory care is an RSV vaccine. Vaccine manufacturers are seeking viable vaccines for both pediatric and elderly populations, and the Meissa RSV vaccine can address the needs of both markets by offering two different dosages.”

Kenneth Kelley, a co-founder of the specialized vaccine company PaxVax, stated, “Meissa Vaccines’ extensive preclinical work has significantly de-risked its RSV vaccine candidate. The RSV vaccine can demonstrate its safety and efficacy in both pediatric and elderly populations.”

Dr. Martin Moore stated, “By leveraging human codon optimization and reverse genetics, we are changing the ‘game rules’ for pediatric vaccines; the RSV vaccine is a globally applicable live-attenuated vaccine that can be administered via a single intranasal dose.”

According to foreign media reports, the current seed-round funding is sufficient to support Meissa Vaccines in manufacturing clinical trial materials for Phase 1 and Phase 2 trials of its RSV vaccine for both adults and children.

(Compiled by Wang Chan)