The first time Gavin S. Herbert heard about the early-stage research taking place at the University of California, Irvine for a universal, preemptive coronavirus vaccine, he dismissed the efforts as a “one-in-a-million shot.”
After seeing the school’s research move ahead over the past year at the UCI eye institute that bears his name, Herbert thinks the odds have improved.
It’s still a long shot, the co-founder of Allergan admits, “maybe 10-to-1.”
“It’s a high-risk, high-reward” effort, he told the Business Journal last month, speaking of the time and financial commitments being made for the local research, whose goal is to create a “preemptive multi-antigen pan-coronavirus vaccine” that could provide a solution for both current and future COVID outbreaks.
The potential reward makes the investments well worthwhile, he says.
“Maybe we can save the world.”
That’s the reason Herbert—the founding father of OC’s aesthetic, ophthalmic and drugmaking industries—has rounded up a who’s who of pharmaceutical, biotech, clinical research and drug development experts to help run a new startup in Irvine called TechImmune LLC.
Their goal: to help get that initial UCI research as far along as possible in the development and clinical trial process over the next 18 months or so, so that a larger pharmaceutical firm could then take the product to market.
Ocular Roots
The roots in TechImmune are in the decades-long work of UCI professor of immunology Lbachir BenMohamed, director of the Laboratory of Cellular and Molecular Immunology at the school’s Gavin Herbert Eye Institute.
The 70,000-square-foot eye institute opened nine years ago—its reported $39 million development cost was 100% privately financed—and has quickly grown to become one of the top ophthalmic institutions in the country.
At the time of its 2013 opening, it was the first clinical school to open on the university’s campus since 1988.
BenMohamed in 1997 earned a Ph.D. in immunology from Paris’ Pasteur Institute where he worked as the key developer and co-inventor of a new promising vaccine strategy that uses mucosal delivery of clinically approved lipopeptide molecules, according to UCI.
While working on research pertaining to a vaccine designed to treat ocular herpes, one of the leading causes of blindness, BenMohamed and his team saw the potential for a similar vaccine that could prevent different types of coronaviruses—including those that cause the common cold, and possibly future strains of the virus that could arise from animal contact with humans.
The main difference between UCI’s work and the vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer is that those vaccines are designed to specifically attack the spike protein in the COVID-19 virus, which has more than 20 proteins.
The vaccines being worked on by BenMohanmed’s team incorporate the spike protein in combination with other non-spike proteins that have been selected from the whole genome of SARS-CoV-2.
Early research that’s taken place over the course of the pandemic has proved promising, officials say, which led BenMohamed, Herbert and others to set up TechImmune late last year, to help speed up the development process.
Fundraise, More Needed
TechImmune has a licensing agreement with UCI that covers a trio of coronavirus patents and has been funded to date via third-party grants—including a reported $3.6 million grant from the National Institutes of Health—and money from a select group of investors.
The company had a pre-money valuation of about $10 million, Herbert said in January. That was prior to an imminent funding round expected to run a couple million dollars.
More funds will be needed; it’s been previously estimated by BenMohamed that it would likely cost $20 million or so just to complete a Phase 1 clinical trial with humans.
As a result, “we need a big pharma partner” to help get the finish line, Herbert said, saying it’s likely an 18 to 24 month process to get a successful vaccine to humans.
The firm’s plans, assuming all goes well with future research and trials, would be to license the technology of TechImmune to a large pharma company, which would complete trials and regulatory work and take the product to market.
That would in turn provide continuing royalties to both TechImmune and UCI.
“We’re trying to move the needle,” he said of the efforts with the startup.
The A Team
The company faces competition from many other researchers working on similar universal vaccine programs elsewhere across the globe, according to Herbert, who turns 90 at the end of the month.
Some of those other research teams are likely further along in their efforts.
TechImmune’s advantage: Herbert, using his deep industry connections from his decades at Allergan, has assembled an A-list team to give TechImmune the best chance of success.
Notable names involved in the company, as advisers, executives, and board members, include:
• Trevor Jones, Ph.D., a world-renowned British pharmaceutical and biotech industry exec, who served as the main board director for research and development at the Wellcome Foundation;
• Jeffery Ulmer, Ph.D., the former director of DNA Vaccines for Merck, and former global head of external research for Novartis;
• Richard Haugen, a former COO of Allergan, and former CEO of La Jolla’s Amylin Pharmaceuticals;
• Daniel Gil, Ph.D., a former VP of Research at Allergan; and
• James Cavanaugh, Ph.D., who served as president of SmithKline Beckman’s clinical laboratory business and President of Allegan International.
Cavanaugh—who is also involved in Chapman University—like Herbert and several others with ties to TechImmune counts his share of political connections. He served as a key adviser to former Presidents Nixon, Ford and Reagan.
Institute’s Impact
David Pyott, Allergan’s former longtime CEO, is also involved in the venture as an adviser and investor, as is Jim Mazzo, OC’s leading business exec in the ophthalmology industry.
Mazzo, who helped spearhead the development of the UCI eye institute, says the work of TechImmune is an example of the rapid progress the institute has made since its opening.
“I am thrilled to see what the Gavin Herbert Eye Institute has been able to do,” he said last week.
“When we created the eye institute, research was one of our key focuses,” Mazzo said.
TechImmune “is just one of many exciting activities from the eye institute.”
