Frontier IP PLC (LON:FIPP) investee company The Vaccine Group (TVG) said it is making “significant progress” with its animal vaccine platform and, significantly, has started work on an animal inoculation that would prevent the spread of coronavirus from animal to human.
In a comprehensive update, TVG said rabbit trials of a prototype bovine mastitis drug have revealed “significant potential for new intellectual property and demonstrated the technology's ability to deliver strong, targeted immune responses”.
Its treatment to combat bovine tuberculosis and African Swine Fever Virus, meanwhile, is about to enter initial animal trials after less than a year working on methods to combat the latter.
At the same time, US government-backed work to develop vaccines to tackle Ebola and Lassa fever virus is said to be making “good progress”.
Eye-catching was its vaccine research on coronavirus designed to prevent what’s called “zoonotic emergence”, which is the technical term for animal-to-human transfer.
TVG is operating in harness Shanghai Veterinary Research Institute in China and Kansas State University on this latter project.
Frontier chief executive Neil Crabb lauded the progress made by TVG as well as noting the “compelling need for vaccines to tackle diseases with profound human and economic costs”.
“The range of vaccines now under development and the success of trials so far proves the technology could be potent in tackling a wide variety of diseases that jump from animals to humans or are damaging economically,” he added.
The last funding round valued the University of Plymouth spin-out TVG at £9.5mln, which means Frontier’s 17% stake is worth £1.6mln.