In the laboratories of the University of Massachusetts Lowell’s Massachusetts Medical Device Development Center (M2D2), scientists are working out a novel way to deliver a universal flu vaccine—by using good bacteria.
According to the Centers for Disease Control, influenza vaccines were just 29 percent effective during the last flu season due to the emergence of new viral strains. And this year, there’s already early evidence that the flu vaccine might be off-target.
That’s where Versatope Therapeutics comes in.
What Versatope has created is essentially a real-life technology platform. Researchers model a particle delivery system using animation software. Then, scientists in the lab genetically engineer probiotic strains of bacteria that are brimming with vesicles—think small tentacles on the outside of the microbe—about 50 times as many vesicles as a standard bacterium. The team then attaches flu proteins to the vesicles, and the vaccine is ready.
“We can put on different proteins for different targets,” said CEO Christopher Locher. “If we want to make a flu vaccine, we can make a flu vaccine. If we want to make a herpes vaccine, we can make a herpes vaccine. If we want to make something else, like a malaria vaccine, we can do that too, just by attaching the different proteins and delivering it with our particles.”
Versatope’s method doesn’t require scientists to accurately predict future strains. Instead, the scientists at the startups can create a batch of vaccines and profile specific flu proteins that don’t change much year over year.
The technology is similar to a meningitis vaccine currently being developed at GlaxoSmithKline, which makes it a promising candidate for approval by the Food and Drug Administration, Locher said. He estimates the drug will go to preclinical trials in the next year and, ideally, enter Phase I clinical trials in 2021 and Phase II in 2022. The long-term business strategy is to license the technology to a large pharmaceutical company.
Versatope Therapeutics may be a young startup, but already, it’s making waves. Last month, it was awarded a contract with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), a division of the National Institutes of Health, worth up to $17.9 million over five years. That money will go toward the advancement of its universal flu vaccine candidate.
Locher founded Versatope with Cornell University professors Matthew DeLisa and David Putnam in 2017. DeLisa and Putnam had already developed the technology and wanted to bring it to the private sector.
“They wanted to spin out a company, and they asked me if I wanted to do it,” Locher said. “I’ve known [Putnam] for 20-plus years, since we collaborated on vaccine development when I was at the University of California San Francisco. I was talking to him about something else, and he goes, ‘Hey, I’ve got this technology. Want to start a company?’ It was kind of left field. I didn’t know that was where the conversation was headed.”
But Locher agree to look over Putnam’s slide deck, and soon after, they were setting up Versatope Therapeutics.
Before they set up shop at M2D2 in March 2018, Locher’s team participated in MassBio's MassCONNECT biotech entrepreneurship mentorship program. Versatope was also part of MassChallenge Boston’s 2017 cohort.
For Versatope, Lowell is the place to be.
“Lowell has the bones,” Locher said. “Lowell has all these vacant mills that you can renovate relatively cheaply. And the cost of doing business here is much, much cheaper than what you’d find in Cambridge. Cambridge is now $100 a square foot. And if you’re a startup company? It’s not going to happen.”
It’s not just the cost of rent. Versatope’s relationship with UMass Lowell also means its team has access to academic resources—electron microscopes, for example, and the full library catalog—along with the students in the area. This summer, Versatope hired three interns from UMass Lowell, one of whom will be hired on full-time come January. Locher, who is himself a Lexington resident, is working to bring on Ph.D. students who could study at UMass Lowell and work at Versatope simultaneously.
“Lowell grows on you,” Locher said. “It’s true. It’s a cool city.”
As they say, there’s a lot to like.
