Affinivax
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Affinivax was acquired by GSK in 2022 for $2.1B. Founded in 2014 out of Boston Children’s Hospital, Affinivax develops vaccines without adjuvants. The company was acquired mainly for its 24-valent pneumococcal vaccine in late-stage trials to go heads up against Pfizer/Prevnar.
The company is built around its MAPS platform that uses non-covalent chemistry between biotin & rhizavidin to conjugate/present both polysaccharide & protein antigens to the host immune system to induce a B- and T-cell immune response. MAPS = Multiple Antigen Presenting System.
MAPS enables higher valency than conventional conjugation technologies. Affinivax’s focus is pneumococcal disease, the main cause of acute bacterial infections, leading to >150K annual hospitalizations in the US. Pfizer’s Prevnar has >$5B/year in PD, the bar is pretty high here.
Affinivax shows the value in vaccine development still exists. The initial focus is on preventing pneumococcal disease with a purview on other infectious diseases especially those acquired in a hospital https://www.gsk.com/en-gb/media/press-releases/gsk-completes-acquisition-of-affinivax-inc/