Vaxxas raises $25m in Series B financing

Vaxxas has raised $25 million in Series B venture financing to help accelerate the commercialisation of its Nanopatch needle-free vaccine delivery platform.

The new funding round brings the total capital raised by Vaxxas to $40 million, following the $15 million Series A financing round accompanying the company’s foundation in 2011.

OneVentures leads both the series A and series B rounds. OneVentures Managing Director Dr Paul Kelly is also chairman of the board of Vaxxas.

The Nanopatch platform is designed to deliver vaccine to immunological cells below the surface of the skin. Vaxxas’s plans for the platform involve applying the technology against major diseases including influenza, polio, bacterial infections and cancer.

Vaxxas is pursuing a commercialisation strategy involving licensing its Nanopatch platform to global pharmaceutical companies while also developing vaccine candidates on its own.

Merck & Co is currently evaluating using the platform to deliver certain undisclosed vaccine candidates, and Vaxxas recently secured funding from the WHO to evaluate using Nanopatch for polio vaccination.

“As we have advanced the development of our Nanopatch needle-free vaccination technology, we have seen tremendous opportunities to create our own proprietary pipeline of Nanopatch-based vaccine products as well as those with partners,” Vaxxas CEO David Hoey said.

“This funding creates an important inflection point for Vaxxas as we are now poised to create significantly increased value through our first clinical studies.”