IISc Start-up’s ‘Warm Vaccine’ to Get Funding of Rs 31 Cr to Bring Jabs to Market Soon: Report

Mynvax, a vaccine technology startup incubated by the Indian Institute of Science’s Society for Innovation and Development (SID), has signed an agreement to raise $4.2 million (31 crore) in a Series A round of funding headed by Accel to bring the ‘thermotolerant’ Covid vaccine to market.

The firm said on Monday that it was working on innovative recombinant vaccines for COVID-19 and human influenza and that the funds would be used to advance clinical development, the Hindu reported.

A ‘warm’ vaccine will be helpful in vaccinating people in remote parts of the world where access to cold storage is limited. The vaccine, being developed by IISc and Mynvax, has antibodies that could neutralise all four major covid variants, according to CSIRO scientists.

The vaccine will be helpful in vaccinating people in remote parts of the world where access to cold storage is limited. Human trials of the vaccine will reportedly be conducted later in 2021.

LetsVenture and a few early stage angel investors also participated in this round, which received the backing of its pre-Series A investors such as 1Crowd, Kotak Investment Advisors and other angel investors.

The company said it was able to rapidly demonstrate its ability to develop novel vaccine candidates that have been rigorously tested for performance and unique attributes such as heat tolerance, with the help of BIRAC, the Government of India, early-stage investors, and SID, IISc, to increase vaccine access across the country.

In addition to expeditiously advancing its existing vaccine candidates, both in India and overseas, the company would also invest in developing new vaccine modalities, said Dr. Gautham Nadig, co-founder and Executive Director of Mynvax.

He stated that Mynvax would begin partnerships with large vaccine makers in order to speed up the deployment of much-needed vaccines.

“We strongly believe that Mynvax’s platform has the potential to make a huge positive change in the Global vaccine landscape for major respiratory illnesses,” Mahendran Balachandran, Partner, Accel said.

Dr. Raghavan Varadarajan, Professor at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, and Dr. Nadig, an alumni of the Institute, created Mynvax in 2017 with the goal of developing revolutionary and broadly protective influenza vaccine technologies.

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