Amyris and IDRI enter license for RNA vaccine platform, beginning with COVID-19 vaccine

In California, Amyris, Inc. signed a Collaboration Agreement and License Agreement with the Infectious Disease Research Institute to advance a novel ribonucleic acid vaccine platform, including accelerating the development of a COVID-19 vaccine. The collaboration will combine IDRI’s RNA vaccine platform, including IDRI’s proprietary nanostructured lipid carrier platform, with Amyris’s semi-synthetic squalene.

This has the potential to offer differentiated advantages over other RNA vaccines, including superior scalability, efficacy, and sustainability.

Amyris will co-own intellectual property developed to create the COVID-19 vaccine, any rights in any combination of IDRI materials and Amyris squalene, the pre-clinical and Phase I clinical trial data, and the Clinical Study Report.

Vaccines licensed from IDRI to Amyris are originally intended for COVID-19, plus up to three additional indications, and Amyris will have the right to develop and commercialize each such vaccine for all fields of use and all indications (excluding zika, yellow fever and Epstein-Barr Virus), including pandemic or seasonal influenza, and certain cancer treatments.

The vaccine development collaboration project for COVID-19 is expected to conclude in the first half of 2022.