Tiba Biotech received a Notice of Intent from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) to fund a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I grant to develop a novel mRNA vaccine against emerging tick-borne diseases (TBDs). Responding to the National Institutes of Health’s recent Notice of Special Interest to advance research in TBDs, Tiba has looked to the particularly challenging Powassan virus (POWV). This is a Flavivirus transmitted by ticks, found in North America and in the Russian Far East. While reported cases remain rare, incidence is increasing along with the expansion in the geographical range of ticks that transmit the disease.

This proposal has even broader potential relevance to other tick-borne diseases, including flaviviruses that undergo rapid mutation and adaptation. Recent examples of flavivirus epidemics such as West Nile virus and Zika virus (which alone cost the Latin American and Caribbean region an estimated $3.5 billion USD) highlight the importance of preparedness.

 

The risk to human life is compelling: POWV case fatality is upwards of 10% infected, and over half of survivors exhibit long-lasting or permanent effects.

This grant comes on the heels of an ongoing SBIR Phase I, also with the NIAID, to develop a multi-antigen RNA-based vaccine against the highly pathogenic H7N9 strain of influenza virus.  Here we plan to leverage a similar approach to delivering a novel antigen payload incorporating multiple self-amplifying replicons against this emerging and evolving TBD.

For more on the pandemic influenza grant see NIH funding to advance Tiba’s pandemic influenza RNA vaccine candidate and for the COVID-19 multi-antigen project, see Tiba secures NIAID grant for an RNA-based multi-antigen vaccine for SARS-CoV-2. Tiba’s earlier work on pandemic influenza has been previously reported in Dendrimer-RNA nanoparticles generate protective immunity against lethal Ebola, H1N1 influenza, and Toxoplasma gondii challenges with a single dose. Final funding for a May 2022 start date is subject to Tiba meeting standard SBIR requirements that it has met in the past.