Achieving Thermal Stability for PnuVax's Protein-Conjugate Vaccines****

PnuVax公司致力于生产高质量的疫苗和生物制药，以促进全球公众健康。PnuVax生产多种疫苗，包括用于预防肺炎的蛋白质/偶联物Prevnar®。能够以无需冷藏的形式生产和配制这种疫苗，将为PnuVax在这个庞大的市场上提供强大的竞争优势——即使市场份额的微小增加也会带来非常大的收入增长。提高热稳定性仍然是疫苗学中最大的未解决问题之一。最近，Filipe博士的团队（麦克马斯特大学化学工程系）建立了一种新的方法来热稳定各种复杂的生物制剂，如酶、核酸、细胞和噬菌体。他们证明，普鲁兰和海藻糖的混合物会形成水溶性薄膜（PT薄膜），当将这些复杂的生物制剂掺入混合物并作为薄膜干燥时，可以热稳定这些生物制剂。我们将把这项技术应用于肺炎球菌结合疫苗Prevnar®13，该疫苗将由我们在该项目的工业合作伙伴PnuVax提供，并确定PT膜保护疫苗免受热降解的有效性。****能够热稳定疫苗将大大降低疫苗接种的成本，这将增加每年可接种疫苗的人数，并将使加拿大公司在这个竞争激烈的全球市场上具有竞争优势。在安大略省生产的疫苗剂量的增加也将导致创造新的就业机会，特别是那些需要高素质人才的就业机会。通过使世界各地的人们更容易获得疫苗，该项目有可能在当地和全球经济增长方面产生强大的影响。**

PnuVax Incorporated is dedicated to the production of high-quality vaccines and biopharmaceuticals for the promotion of public health worldwide. PnuVax produces several vaccines, including the protein/conjugates Prevnar® used to prevent pneumonia. The ability to produce and formulate this vaccine in a form that can be distributed without the need for refrigeration would provide a strong competitive advantage to PnuVax in this massive market - even small gains in market share would result in very large revenue increases. Improved thermal stability remains one of the largest unsolved problems in vaccinology. Recently, Dr. Filipe's group (Department of Chemical Engineering, McMaster University) has established a new method to thermally stabilize various complex biological agents such as enzymes, nucleic acids, cells and phage They demonstrated that a mixture of pullulan and trehalose results in the formation of water-soluble films (PT films) that can thermally stabilize these complex biological agents when incorporated into the mixture and dried as a film. We will apply this technology to a pneumococcal conjugate vaccine, Prevnar® 13, which will be supplied by PnuVax, our industrial partner for this project and determine the effectiveness of PT films to protect the vaccines agains thermal degradation. ****Being able to thermally stabilize vaccines would greatly decrease the cost of vaccination, which would increase the number of people that can be vaccinated every year and would give a competitive advantage to a Canadian company in this highly competitive global market. An increase in the number of vaccine dosages produced in Ontario will also result in the creation of new jobs, especially those where highly qualified personal are needed. This project has the potential to have a strong local impact in terms of economic growth as well as globally, by making vaccines more accessible to people around the world.**