PR Release - awarded Grants to develop enabling technologies for manufacture of precision mRNA vaccines
Summary
The grant has been awarded by the Australian Governments National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), and will be matched by the South Australian Government to support a five-year collaborative project with a total value of over $10.0m AUD, working with industry and academic partners, Cytiva and the University of Adelaide.The project, commencing almost immediately, helps BioCina address the post-pandemic mRNA demand for specific and essential attributes of new personalized RNA products. This MRFF grant strengthens linkages between commercial lead BioCina Pty Ltd, industry partner Cytiva, as well as expands discovery research in microfluidic chip parallel manufacturing of mRNA based therapeutic vaccines with world-class experts from the University of Adelaide. This expansion of manufacturing capabilities allows BioCina to service a larger section of the global market and ensure that Australia has population-scale onshore mRNA vaccine manufacturing capabilities.The Universitys Deputy Vice Chancellor and Vice-President (Research), Professor Anton Middelberg commented although ambitious, the research and development project has been carefully designed with a reasonable feasibility/gain/risk balance and it is strongly supported by the unique interdisciplinary and complementary expertise of the chief investigators (CIs). The goal of this work is to introduce a start-to-finish manufacturing solution for personalised mRNA-LNP therapeutics that is world-class, in a timely manner that can service Australian and international companies.The Hon. The BioCina Adelaide facility, formerly the Pfizer/Hospira plant, includes fit for purpose spaces for GMP manufacturing, process development, warehouse, and administration.