Vaccitech to Host KOL Webinar on the SNAPvax™ Platform for Inducing Tolerance to Treat Celiac and other Autoimmune Diseases

OXFORD, United Kingdom, Nov. 21, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Vaccitech plc (NASDAQ: VACC) today announced that it will host a Key Opinion Leader (KOL) webinar on its SNAPvax™ Platform and application in tolerogenic immunotherapies for celiac disease and other autoimmune diseases on Monday, November 28, 2022 at 4:30 pm ET. Vaccitech is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company engaged in the discovery and development of novel immunotherapeutics and vaccines for the treatment and prevention of infectious diseases, autoimmunity, and cancer.

The event will highlight Vaccitech’s SNAPvax™ platform and other nanoparticle technologies for enabling immunotherapies to induce tolerance, with a review of the latest supporting data. Geoffrey Lynn, PhD, senior vice president, will present on Vaccitech’s SNAPvax™-based preclinical asset VTP-1000 for treating celiac disease and provide an overview of the technology’s potential for targeting other autoimmune disease indications. Bill Enright, CEO, will provide a company update and insight into SNAPvax’s future directions.

The webinar will feature Robert Anderson, MD, PhD (Novoviah Pharmaceuticals, Brisbane, Australia) and Professor Christopher Jewell, PhD (University of Maryland), leading KOLs on celiac disease and nanoparticle technologies for inducing immune tolerance, respectively. They will discuss the unmet need for and status of treatments for celiac disease and other autoimmunity indications, along with the potential for tolerogenic immunotherapies, such as SNAPvax, in the current treatment landscape.

A live Q&A session will follow the formal presentations. To register for the event, please click .

Dr. Robert Anderson, MBChB, BMedSc, PhD, FRACP, AGAF, is a translational immunologist and gastroenterologist.  His work has characterized the gluten peptides that drive adaptive immunity in celiac disease. Dr. Anderson designed and led the preclinical and clinical development of the first antigen-specific immunotherapy developed for celiac disease. He has worked in clinical, academic, and commercial settings in New Zealand, Australia, UK, and USA. Most recently, he spent 8 years in Cambridge, MA as Chief Scientific Officer for ImmusanT Inc. Dr. Anderson now practices in gastroenterology and is Founder and Director of Novoviah Pharmaceuticals Pty Ltd in Brisbane, Australia, focusing on the Novoleukin whole blood cytokine release diagnostic platform and innovative biopharmaceuticals for immune and gastrointestinal diseases. He is current President of the International Society for the Study of Celiac Disease.

Christopher M. Jewell, PhD, is the MPower Professor and the Minta Martin Professor of Engineering at the University of Maryland in the Fischell Department of Bioengineering and the Medical School. He is also a Research Biologist with the United States Department of Veterans Affairs at the Baltimore VA Medical Center. Dr. Jewell is a Fellow of the Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES), the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE), the Controlled Release Society (CRS), and the Alliance for Cancer Gene Therapy (ACGT).  He is an Associate Editor for Nature Publishing's Regenerative Medicine, and has also been named a Miegunyah Distinguished Faculty Fellow by the University of Melbourne (Australia) at the Peter Doherty Institute for Immunity and Infection. His work at the interface of immunology and materials science harnesses new technologies to study antigen-specific immunity, and exploits these processes for antigen-specific immunotherapies targeting cancer and autoimmunity. Dr. Jewell received his PhD from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, working with Professor David Lynn. Dr. Jewell carried out his postdoctoral training as a Ragon Institute Fellow working with Dr. Darrell Irvine at MIT and as a Visiting Scientist at Harvard with Dr. Dan Barouch in the division of Vaccine Research.

About SNAPvax™

SNAPvax is a fully synthetic and biocompatible platform that utilizes self-assembly to co-deliver multiple antigens and immunomodulators in nanoparticles of precise, programmable size and composition for inducing the specific T cell populations needed for diverse therapeutic indications ranging from cancer to autoimmunity. Publications in ,  and  describe how SNAPvax was systematically optimized to co-deliver immunostimulants and tumor antigens for inducing high magnitude cytotoxic T cells for treating cancer, which is further enhanced when used in combination with our ChAdOx platform. Preclinical studies have shown that SNAPvax is also a highly effective platform for priming regulatory T cells (Tregs) and capable of reversing disease in a mouse model of multiple sclerosis (i.e., EAE). Based on these promising data, SNAPvax enabled products are being advanced for applications in both cancer and autoimmunity.

About Vaccitech

Vaccitech plc (“the Company”) is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company engaged in the discovery and development of novel immunotherapeutics and vaccines for the treatment of chronic infectious diseases, cancer, autoimmunity, and other diseases where the T cell arm of the immune system is believed to play an important role. The company’s proprietary platforms include modified simian adenoviral vectors (ChAdOx1 and ChAdOx2), other viral vectors including the well-validated Modified vaccinia Ankara (MVA), and synthetic nano-particle technologies (SNAPvax™ and Syntholytic™). The combination of different technologies in a mix and match approach (heterologous prime-boost) consistently generates significantly higher magnitudes of T cells compared with other technologies and approaches. The Company has a broad pipeline of both clinical and preclinical stage therapeutic programs to treat solid tumors, chronic viral infections as well as additional prophylactic viral vaccine programs. Vaccitech co-invented a COVID-19 vaccine, Vaxzevria^®, with the University of Oxford, now approved for use in many territories and exclusively licensed worldwide to AstraZeneca through OUI. Vaccitech is entitled to receive a share of all milestone and royalty income received by OUI from AstraZeneca related to Vaxzevria^®.