 Role of adjuvants
Adjuvants play a central role in vaccination. Adjuvants have been defined as formulated compounds or additives that, when combined with vaccine antigens, help to direct or boost the body’s immune system. Adjuvants enhance the magnitude, the kinetics and the duration of immune responses. As a result of their increased potency, vaccines containing adjuvants can produce greater vaccine protection within a shorter treatment time.
The discovery of the key players in the immune response, and the different signalling properties in cells should permit the creation of new adjuvants. Adjuvants can be classified into two main categories. The immuno-modulatory adjuvants induce a preactivation of the immune system, and antigen delivery systems deliver the antigen to the right immune cells.
Wittycell is developing immuno-modulatory adjuvants and antigen delivery systems, using its proprietary technology platforms:
Wittycell adjuvants have the potential to improve established vaccines and to allow the development of new vaccines for diseases that previously would not have been considered as vaccine targets.
The vaccines
A hallmark of the immune system is its ability to remember an encounter with a pathogen for several decades, even for a whole lifetime. This fundamental property of the immune system is the basis for vaccination, and the goal of a successful vaccine is to induce long-term protective immunity against a given pathogen. Vaccination has controlled the spread of major diseases such as rubella and measles.
However, the old vaccine preparations based on killed or attenuated forms of the pathogen has shown its limitations, and development of new vaccines with these technologies has mostly been discontinued.
Biotechnology-based research permits the creation of new subunit vaccines. These new vaccines use purified forms of antigens such as protein or peptides, allowing new diseases to be targeted. However, new defined antigens are poor activator of the immune system, and the resulting new vaccines absolutely require adjuvants. Currently, very few adjuvants are approved for clinical use and this severely limits the development of new vaccines..
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