QIMR Berghofer to collaborate on cytomegalovirus vaccine

A breakthrough vaccine candidate, developed by Australia’s QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute against the common and potentially dangerous cytomegalovirus (CMV), will be further refined in collaboration with US-based Dynavax Technologies.

Under the agreement with QIMR Berghofer, Dynavax will have an exclusive option to obtain a licence to novel protein antigens from QIMR Berghofer. QIMR Berghofer will receive an option fee, with potential for an option exercise fee, plus potential milestone and royalty payments contingent on regulatory, development and commercial success.

CMV is a herpes virus which is carried by half the population. The majority will never develop symptoms, while a small proportion will develop a glandular fever-like illness. However, in pregnant women, CMV is potentially dangerous for their unborn baby and may cause permanent hearing loss, cerebral palsy and even death. The virus is also dangerous for transplant patients due to their compromised immune system.

Despite being a top priority of the US Institute of Medicine, all previous attempts to produce a durable and effective CMV vaccine have failed. According to Professor Rajiv Khanna, coordinator of QIMR Berghofer’s Centre for Immunotherapy and Vaccine Development, this is because previous approaches have relied on traditional technologies to develop antibodies which attach to and remove the virus.

“CMV is a very complex virus — one of the largest DNA viruses — and it can hide inside cells and escape immune control,” Khanna explained.

“What we have done is to deploy another arm of the immune system, what we call killer T cells, to attack those cells in which the virus is hiding.

“We are combining both humoral immunity and this killer cellular immunity into a single formulation.”

Extensive preclinical testing of the bivalent vaccine has produced strong neutralising antibody and CMV-specific polyfunctional T cell responses. The QIMR Berghofer team has also successfully developed a process to produce the vaccine’s polyepitope protein. Their results have been published in the journal PLOS Pathogens.

Under the option and licence agreement, Dynavax will have the option to develop QIMR Berghofer’s polyepitope protein in combination with its proven toll-like receptor 9 agonist CpG 1018 adjuvant. It is hoped that the agreement will lead to clinical development and ultimately commercialisation of a CMV vaccine.

“This agreement paves the way for enriching the current CMV vaccine pipeline with a new promising candidate to potentially address a significant unmet need, protecting pregnant women and their unborn babies against a dangerous infection,” said Professor Fabienne Mackay, QIMR Berghofer Director and CEO.

The next steps in development are to manufacture the proteins, develop the optimal vaccine formulation and then commence a phase one clinical trial. Khanna’s team will collaborate with Dynavax on future development of the vaccine.

Image credit: iStock.com/Dr_Microbe

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