A new company called Ovax Inc. has collected 10 million dollars to develop a vaccine to prevent deaths from fentanylwith the aim of commercializing academic research that prevents the drug from reaching the brain.
The startup obtained the intellectual property license of researchers from the University of Houston who successfully approved a vaccine against fentanyl in rats. Ovaxwhich officially launches this week, is scheduled to begin the first human vaccine trials early next year. If successful, the vaccine will prevent fentanyl users from getting high or overdosing.
“The science “It’s there,” he says. JR Rahn, co-founder of the company. “It just takes someone to be persistent” to bring it to market. Rahn founded Mind Medicine Inc, one of the first psychedelic medicine companies to go public. He called the fentanyl crisis a “public health emergency.”
He fentanyl it’s a synthetic opioid cheap that is often added to illegal drugs and counterfeit pills. More powerful than heroin, is added in small amounts to make other drugs more potent. In larger quantities – even as small as the equivalent of five grains of salt – it is lethal.
The fentanyl poisoning has been the leading cause of death among Americans ages 18 to 45 since 2019, according to the Department of Homeland Security. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention They have estimated that the synthetic opioidsmainly fentanyl, killed 204 people every day last year on average.
Rahn left MindMed in 2021 and began studying the fentanyl epidemic before founding Ovax last year. He led the round of initial financing of the startup through its family office, Mach5 Capitalwhich he runs with his partner, the cryptopreneur Olivier Roussy Newton. About a dozen others investors also contributed to the financing round, including Swiss family office Zola Global and the investor Jon Dishotsky.
Dishotsky called Rahn a visionary leader who has assembled a solid team with a product that, if it works, would prevent many deaths. Unlike the naloxonewhich can be administered as a nasal spray Narcan To reverse the effects of a fentanyl overdose if administered promptly, the Ovax vaccine It aims to prevent overdoses from occurring by mitigating the effects of the drug.
The company will be led by a team that includes the Operational manager, Stacy McIntoshwho was previously Director of Regulatory Affairs at Ridgeback Biotherapeuticswhere he helped this company develop a therapeutic monoclonal antibody against Ebola. Its executive director is Collin Gagewho previously led corporate development and fundraising for MindMed.
Gage said Ovax will likely raise another round from private investors and will ultimately need to raise hundreds of millions to bring a fentanyl vaccine. The company hopes to act quickly. “This is not a rushed project,” Gage said. “We are reusing what currently exists in vaccine technology”.
In addition to the University of Houstonthe company is negotiating with others academic groups who work on similar projects. In academia, researchers have raised tens of millions in grants from National Institutes of Health and the Defense Department for treatments aimed at counteracting the effects of opioids, but there has been no large-scale effort to commercialize that science.
Rahn says he hopes to work closely with state and federal agencies as the company develops its treatment.
“This mission is personal,” he states in a blog in which he announces the creation of the company. “All members of our medical team, scientists, drug developers and financial “They have a deep connection to the overdose and the resulting carnage it is continually inflicting on America.”
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