Nanexa - Nanexa brings US patent suit against VitriVax
Claims vaccine-developer infringes several patents Initial assessment suggests suit has potential Amicable solution probable but raises some uncertainty Nanexa brings patent suit against US vaccine developer Nanexa has brought suit against VitriVax on three counts related to the direct infringement of three of Nanexa’s patents filed in 2017-2019 in the US but with foreign application priority dates back in 2013. The complaint cites a June 2020 paper on a single-shot HPV vaccine study published in the Nature journal NPJ Vaccines, co-authored by a VitriVax co-founder, and also claims other infringements based on other vaccine antigens. VitriVax uses ALD to develop single-shot vaccines VitriVax, Inc. is a Colorado-based company utilizing an ALD tech platform called ALTA (Atomic Layering Thermostable Antigen and Adjuvant) to engineer thermostable, single-shot vaccines that aim to overcome the challenges of cold storage for vaccine delivery and the need for multiple dose administrations.
The ALD technology comes from Forge Nano, a US tech company sprung out of researchers from the University of Colorado creating various ALD tools for out-licensing, including the cGMP-certified PANDORA ALD tool VitriVax is using. Assessment and market implication Our initial assessment is that VitriVax is of modest size, still in pre-clinical development but that it does have at least one licensing agreement with a partner focused on vaccines for ricin toxin and Ebola. VitriVax does appear to hold at least a granted patent (US10751408B2) describing ALD coating of vaccines but primarily focused on thermostability aspects and with a later priority date (2016).
Although difficult to call, our initial assessment is that the suit has potential. We view it as favorable that Nanexa has pro-actively sought to defend its patents, Applied Materials who are world-leaders in ALD will likely have carried out its own due diligence of Nanexa’s IP situation prior to the collaboration and subs.