Bellerophon Project awarded €5.5 million by EU to develop Staphylococcus aureus Vaccine

Imaxio together with its partners from the Jenner Institute at Oxford University, the European Vaccine Initiative and Preclin Biosystems, is pleased to announce a European Union award of €5.5 million to support the ‘Bellerophon Project’ consortium to develop a vaccine against Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus).

The €5.5 million funding will be used to complete pre-clinical tests as well as a Phase I clinical trial in humans in 2016. The Bellerophon Project forms part of the 2012-2013 edition of the Seventh Framework Programme initiated by the European Community for Research, Technological Development and Demonstration Activities (FP7).

The pan-European Bellerophon Project is comprised of four European institutions involved in vaccine development, each contributing specialist expertise and technology. It includes Imaxio, a French biotech company focused in immunology, which has coordinated the grant application, and the Jenner Institute at Oxford University, UK, an academic institution with key expertise on S. aureus antigens and viral vector delivery systems, which will coordinate the overall project.

The consortium also includes the European Vaccine Initiative, a non-for-profit organisation based in Germany specialised in vaccine development programs and coordination of European institutions. The fourth member is Preclin Biosystems, a Swiss contract research organisation that has a strong expertise in preclinical efficacy models for infectious diseases.

“We are proud that the European Commission has chosen to support the Bellerophon Project and provide funding which will enable the consortium to progress our promising technologies and to conduct a phase I clinical trial,” said Alexandre Le Vert, CEO of Imaxio. “This reinforces the confidence we have in our proprietary pro-immunogenic technology, IMX313, which has been evaluated as part of this application.”