THE COMPANY - MALARVX
MalarVx Inc. is a biopharmaceutical company focused on developing an effective malaria vaccine. Founded in 2012 and based in Seattle, Washington, the company aims to eradicate both Plasmodium falciparum and vivax malaria through innovative technologies, including RNA-based vaccines and in vitro culture systems for the malaria parasite. MalarVx has received funding from various sources, including grants and private funding, with significant contributions from the National Institutes of Health and the United States Department of Defense.
OUR CHALLENGE
While some candidates have shown promise in the field, all methods in use to date suffer from one or more of these serious barriers:
(1) Modest or inconsistent efficacy,
(2) Poor durability of protection,
(3) Logistical hurdles that are insurmountable in practice,
(4) A cost of goods that is unrealistic for use in resource-limited environments where malaria is endemic.
OUR COMMITMENT
We are committed to create of a safe and effective malaria vaccine that will enable eradication of malaria caused by Plasmodia parasites.
OUR STRATEGY
The MalarVx's approach holds the promise of overcoming the four critical barriers as follows:
(1) Our preclinical studies show efficacy of 80-100%.
(2) The durability of protection.
(3) The logistics of mass vaccination will be greatly simplified by administration of both the prime and trap doses in a single clinical visit, and by relaxed cold-chain requirements for component storage.
(4) The cost of goods will be dramatically lowered by the greatly reduced demand for whole organisms.
OUR APPROACH
Our approach combines a number of novel technologies:
(1) A “prime-and-trap” vaccination approach,
(2) the LIONTM nanoparticle for intracellular delivery,
(3) Attenuated whole organism parasites (i.e., malaria parasites rendered incapable of causing disease),
(4) In vitro production of whole malaria organisms.
Each of these technologies has been successfully deployed in clinical trials, but they have not yet been combined for use in a vaccination campaign.