Welcome to Hepatacore.co.uk
Who?
We
are a consortium of biotech and academic partners formed to develop a
novel
vaccine platform called tandem
core. The group is
led by iQur Ltd, who have been
developing tandem core for the last four years, and includes Mologic Ltd and University
College
London’s Bioengineering department. The consortium is funded
by
the Technology
Strategy Board (TSB) under its High Value Manufacturing grant call.
What? Tandem core
is based on the core protein isolated from the hepatitis B virus. This
spontaneously forms virus-like particles (VLP) which are commonly used
in
vaccines. They are attractive because they are made from viral protein,
but do
not contain nucleic acid and are therefore inherently safe. However,
one of tandem core’s most unique features is that it can carry two
different targets at the same time. This means that a vaccine
for two different diseases can be made from a single protein.
Consequently, the
final vaccine is highly effective, safe and relatively cheap to
manufacture.
Why? Tandem core
has been in development for some time by both iQur and its partners on
a
previous TSB grant. However, in order to turn it into a viable
commercial
product we must develop a complete manufacturing programme before it
can be
used in clinical trial. In this respect, biotechnology and
pharmaceutical
products are unique; in no other industry would there be a requirement
for a
manufacturing process to be developed before proof of concept had been
shown.
Obviously, this is driven by legitimate safety concerns, however, this is
the
entire raison d’être for the consortium. We believe
that tandem core represents a
powerful new vaccine technology with application to a number of
important
diseases and wish to bring it to market as soon as possible. Such a
product
represents the very definition of a high value manufactured product
since it
may have utility in many diseases and could potentially help millions
of
people. Thus, we gratefully acknowledge the support of the TSB.
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News
Kick off meeting
We met on 6th November 2009 to
begin the project.
Q1 meeting
1st February 2010 at UCL.
Q2 meeting
4th May 2010 at Sharnbrook
Q3 meeting
4th May 2010 at UCL
Q4 meeting
2nd November 2010 at UCL
Q5 meeting
Scheduled for 1st February 2011 at Sharnbrook