RCS - Frontier IP Group - Innovate UK awards grant to The Vaccine Group

Frontier IPAnnouncement

17/10/2024 07:00

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RNS Number : 4784I  Frontier IP Group plc  17 October 2024

REACH

AIM: FIPP

17 October 2024

 

Frontier IP Group plc

("Frontier IP" or the "Group")

 

 

Portfolio news - Innovate UK awards Smart grant of more than £400,000 to The
Vaccine Group and the Animal and Plant Health Agency

 

Frontier IP, a specialist in commercialising intellectual property, today
notes the following announcement from the University of Plymouth that
portfolio company The Vaccine Group ("TVG" or the "Company") and The Animal
and Plant Health Agency (APHA) have been awarded an Innovate UK Smart grant of
more than £400,000.

 

The grant money will be used to develop vaccines for use in cattle based on
TVG's novel herpesvirus-based antigen delivery platform. Two diseases are
initially being targeted: bovine respiratory syncytial virus (BRSV) and lumpy
skin disease (LSD). BRSV is widespread globally and causes severe economic
harm, while LSD is spreading rapidly. Frontier IP holds a 17 per cent stake in
the Company.

 

APHA is an executive agency of the  Department for Environment, Food &
Rural Affairs (Defra), and also works on behalf of the Scottish and Welsh
governments. Itis responsible for animal, plant and bee health in the UK.

 

The Innovate UK grant and APHA collaboration is the latest in a series of
awards and partnerships announced by TVG this year. In September 2024, Defra
awarded more than £1 million to a project led by TVG, the University of
Plymouth and the University of Cambridge to develop vaccine candidates to
tackle Streptococcus suis, an emerging zoonotic disease prevalent in pigs.
Earlier this year the Company announced a collaboration with The Pirbright
Institute to develop vaccines to combat African swine fever.

 

Frontier IP Chief Executive Officer Neil Crabb said: "I am delighted with this
latest grant award for TVG and the collaboration with the Animal and Plant
Health Agency. The number of awards and the prestigious organisations the
Company is working with provides a strong validation of its novel technology.
We are very excited about its potential."

 

 

The Vaccine Group statement begins:

 

 

IUK Smart grant awarded to The Vaccine Group and APHA for cattle vaccine
platform development

The Animal and Plant Health Agency  APHA , Surrey and The Vaccine Group Ltd.,
Plymouth, are delighted to announce that Innovate UK has awarded them a Smart
grant in excess of £400,000. The grant will be used to further develop a
novel viral vector platform for the delivery of vaccine antigens for use in
cattle, in a project that will last for 19 months.

The technology that has been developed by scientists at TVG's laboratories in
Plymouth, Devon, has been used to create candidate vaccines for several
important infectious diseases in cattle worldwide. In this project candidate
vaccines for two diseases will be used to demonstrate the capabilities of the
technology.

 The two diseases for which candidate vaccines have been created by TVG for
this project are bovine respiratory syncytial virus (BRSV) and lumpy skin
disease (LSD). BRSV is the leading viral cause of respiratory illness in
young calves in the UK, impacting around 1.9 million calves annually and
costing approximately £54 million. The virus is prevalent worldwide and
poses a substantial economic burden on both beef and dairy producers. In the
last 10 years, LSDV has spread dramatically outside its natural enzootic
geographies in Africa and the Middle East, causing severe disease in first
eastern Europe, and then SE Asia and now the Far East.

 Working with key opinion leaders for the two diseases in the UK and Canada
respectively, TVG has inserted transgenes for protective antigens from each
virus into two separate constructs through genetic manipulation. Both vaccine
candidates have been shown to be stable genetically and have demonstrated
stable and prolonged protein expression in tissue culture over multiple
passages. Both diseases have broad global prevalence, with BRSV especially
affecting intensively reared cattle globally. Currently available commercial
vaccines for BRSV do not prevent shedding and are restricted from use in very
young calves by maternal immunity.  There are no DIVA vaccines available for
LSD currently, which limits their use in areas where serosurveillance and
eradication programmes are in place. TVG's candidate vaccines will address all
of these issues.

 In addition to the scientific inputs from TVG and APHA staff from the
Department of Pathology and Animal Sciences, the project will be supported by
the World Reference Laboratory for Non-Vesicular Diseases at The Pirbright
Institute, Surrey, to determine how the vaccine candidates can produce an
adequate serological response in animals and protect cattle from these
diseases.

 Dr Jeremy Salt, Chief Executive Officer at The Vaccine Group, said: "For
cattle farmers around the globe infectious diseases are a major cause for
concern and can lead to significant losses - both in terms of animal health
and welfare, and in financial terms. Our goal in developing a viral vector
platform for use in cattle effective vaccines is to overcome some of the
deficiencies that affect the current commercialised vaccines. By doing so, we
can better protect the farmers, their animals and their livelihoods. We can
also make beef and milk production more efficient, humane and sustainable, at
the same time helping the sector address the global challenges of antibiotic
resistance and carbon emissions."

 

The project will build on previous research by The Vaccine Group, through
which the potential candidates for these vaccines were identified.

The technology works by administering a benign virus to cattle which in turn
stimulates the expression of proteins that induce an immune response in the
animals to a pathogen. The new trials will explore its potential to protect
against different infectious diseases of cattle.

 

The Vaccine Group Statement ends

 

 

ENQUIRIES

            Frontier IP Group Plc                                                   T: 020 7332 2338
            Neil Crabb, Chief Executive                                             neil@frontierip.co.uk

            Andrew Johnson, Communications and investor relations                   M: 07464 546 025

            andrew.johnson@frontierip.co.uk

            Company website: www.frontierip.co.uk (http://www.frontierip.co.uk/)
            Allenby Capital Limited (Nominated Adviser)                             T: 0203 328 5656
            Nick Athanas / George Payne

 The Vaccine Group                                                                  Jeremy.salt@thevaccinegroup.co.uk
 Jeremy Salt, CEO

 

 

ABOUT FRONTIER IP

Frontier IP unites science, finance and industry by identifying strong
intellectual property and accelerating its development through a range of
commercialisation services. A critical part of the Group's work is involving
relevant industry partners at an early stage of development to ensure
technology meets real world demands and needs.

The Group looks to build and grow a portfolio of equity stakes and licence
income by taking an active involvement in spin-out companies, including
support for fund raising and collaboration with relevant industry partners at
an early stage of development.

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