RCS - Frontier IP Group - TVG's vaccine candidate enters animal trials

Frontier IPAnnouncement

06/05/2025 07:00

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RNS Number : 2949H  Frontier IP Group plc  06 May 2025

REACH - a non-regulatory announcement

AIM: FIPP

06 May 2025

 

Frontier IP Group plc

("Frontier IP" or the "Group")

 

 

Portfolio news - The Vaccine Group's African Swine Fever vaccine candidate
enters animal trials

 

Frontier IP, a specialist in commercialising intellectual property, today
notes the following announcement from portfolio company The Vaccine Group
("TVG" or the "Company") that a vaccine candidate developed in collaboration
with The Pirbright Institute to combat African Swine Fever ("ASF") has entered
animal trials.

 

ASF is a highly contagious, epidemic and viral disease that can prove fatal to
pigs. In some cases, mortality rates reach 100 per cent. The economic effects
are severe. Steps to fight the disease include mass culling, export
restrictions and other trade disruptions. In China alone, ASF is estimated to
have caused economic damage worth $119 billion in a decade(1) , with a
particularly bad outbreak in 2019 resulting in a 0.8 per cent hit to Chinese
GDP(2). Since 2022, it has been reported in 64 countries.

 

There are no safe and effective vaccines currently available. University of
Plymouth spin out TVG and The Pirbright Institute started collaborating on a
vaccine in 2024, a project backed by funding through a  Biotechnology and
Biological Sciences Research Council ("BBSRC") Industrial Partnership Award.
The BBSRC is part of UK Research and Innovation.

 

The ASF vaccine candidate is part of an expanding pipeline of vaccines and
biotherapeutics being developed by TVG targeting 12 different livestock and
companion animal diseases.

 

Frontier IP holds a 16.7 per cent equity stake in the Company.

 

 

Frontier IP Chief Executive Officer Neil Crabb said: "The ASF vaccine entering
animal trials is an important milestone, not just for TVG, but more broadly
for efforts to stop this devastating disease. ASF has now emerged as a rapidly
spreading global threat, yet there is no safe and effective vaccine - and
vaccines are the most potent means of preventing disease."

 

 

 

(1)Schulz, K., C. Staubach, S. Blome, I. Nurmoja, A. Viltrop and F.J.
Conraths. 2019. African swine fever: Fast and furious or slow and steady?
Viruses 11(10), 86

 

(2)https://www.nature.com/articles/s43016-021-00362-

 

 

 

 

The Vaccine Group statement begins:

 

 

 

TVG African Swine Fever vaccine candidate enters animal trials

Over the past 15 years African Swine Fever (ASF) has developed into an
epidemic affecting pig producers globally. Until that point ASF was confined
largely to endemic infection in a number of sub-Saharan African countries.
Since the first report of the genotype II virus being present in Georgia in
the Caucasus region in 2007, ASF has extended its geographical distribution
and is now present in large parts of Eastern, Central and Southern Europe.

Furthermore, in 2018 ASF was introduced into China, and has since spread
widely in the region. In 2021, a further long-distance jump occurred, and ASF
was reported first in the Dominican Republic and later in Haiti. This massive
geographical expansion over the past 18 years, makes ASF a truly global issue
and the risk of further dissemination of into disease free areas is considered
high.

TVG has been working in collaboration with world experts on the disease at The
Pirbright Institute (Pirbright) in Surrey, England for more than six years to
develop an ASF vaccine for the improved control of this global ASF epidemic.

Last year our partners at The Pirbright Institute were awarded an Industry
Partnership Award by BBSRC to work with us on our bovine herpesvirus-vectored
vaccine against ASF. This vaccine delivers several antigenic proteins derived
from the ASF virus and is inherently compatible with a DIVA approach to
diagnostics and surveillance. Animal trials are now underway: pigs have been
vaccinated already and will be challenged using a virulent genotype II ASF
virus strain in a model developed recently at Pirbright to mimic natural
routes of infection. The outcome of this clinical study will be made available
publicly as soon as possible.

The development of an effective vaccine has enormous value from an animal
welfare, food security and commercial perspective. There is no widely
available vaccine against ASF even for the genotype II that is the cause of
the current global epidemic. Recent limited introductions of a
live attenuated vaccine in south east Asia have been associated with some
safety concerns (https://doi.org/10.1038/s41541-025-01099-9
(https://eur02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdoi.org%2F10.1038%2Fs41541-025-01099-9&data=05%7C02%7C%7Ccb85cbe6701a4b2b300b08dd82684700%7Cbffa551e16cb466f8c6a2519187fe364%7C0%7C0%7C638810106563754991%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C80000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=vzFtjawOIWqvbzKExCXkyXY3cJa7h1Wxpz8Nwo1TEAE%3D&reserved=0)
), an issue that TVG's vaccine would address. To keep abreast of the latest
developments in ASF research our CEO Jeremy Salt will be attending the
upcoming Global Alliance for ASF Research (GARA) Scientific Meeting at the
FAO's headquarters in Rome later this month, where he is due to join the
GARA Executive Committee as Finance Director.

Jeremy Salt, TVG CEO commented:  "It is very exciting right now to be on the
verge of seeing this pig challenge trial data with our jointly developed novel
ASF vaccine. This represents the fruition of several years of successful
collaborative work between TVG and Pirbright to get to this point. The
continuing need for an effective ASF vaccine is very clear."

The Vaccine Group Statement ends

 

 

ENQUIRIES

            Frontier IP Group Plc                                                   T: 020 7332 2338
            Neil Crabb, Chief Executive                                             neil@frontierip.co.uk (mailto: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 / Dan Dearden-Williams

 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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