Protea Vaccine Technologies Ltd. began operations as a Meytav Portfolio company in June

2006. The company is developing a protein based universal vaccine for Streptococcus pneumoniae. 

The founders are Prof. Yaffa Mizrachi Nebenzahl PhD from the Pediatric Infectious Disease Unit and the Department of Microbiology and Immunology, an expert in host pathogen interaction with the host immune system and Prof. Ron Dagan MD, head of Pediatric Infectious Disease Unit, Soroka University Medical center, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, .a specialists in pediatric infectious diseases and vaccines.

 

Biotechnology, Pharmaceuticals, Vaccine technology

 

Streptococcus pneumoniae (Pneumococcus) is a bacterial pathogen with 92 known

capsular polysaccharide serotypes. It is a leading cause of illness in young children, the elderly and people suffering from certain underlying medical conditions. Each year in the United States, pneumococcal disease accounts for an estimated 3,000 cases of meningitis, 50,000 cases of bacteremia, 500,000 cases of pneumonia and 7 million cases of otitis media. Pneumococcal infection is estimated to cause 40,000 deaths annually in the United States, more deaths than any other vaccine-preventable bacterial disease. Worldwide, pneumococcus is responsible yearly for an estimated 800,000 deaths in children under 5 years of age. Approximately half of these deaths may be prevented by vaccination. Thus, the global Streptococcus pneumoniae vaccine market is about 6 billion dollars a year and it is expected to grow to over 11 billion in 2010.

The available polysaccharide based vaccines protect against a narrow but significant group of pneumococcal serotypes, the vaccinated subjects remaining susceptible to strains not included in the vaccines. Conjugated polysaccharide vaccines that have been designed for infants are complex to produce, expensive and deficient in their spectrum of strain coverage.

 

Protea aims to develop an efficacious vaccine that will protect against pneumococcal serotypes prevalent among humans of all ages in all geographical locations. Using an immunoproteomics-based approach Protea has identified 38 pneumococcal cell wall associated proteins that exhibit age dependant immunogenicity in infants. The proteins were screened for low homology to human sequences and for sequence conservation among different pneumococcal strains. Importantly, when administered to mice, the proteins induce an immune response that protects against intranasal bacterial challenge. Further studies will delineate the vaccine ‘cocktail’ comprised of these proteins that induce optimally protective immune responses. Protea vaccines will not only protect a wider range of people against a greater number of strains, but being protein-based, Protea vaccines will be relative inexpensive to manufacture.

 

Dr. Michael Tal - CEO

Zvika Rubinstein - CEO of the Meytav Incubator - Chairman of the Board of Directors

Dr. Ettie Pirak - VP Technologies, Meytav Technological Incubator - Director

 

Patent applications were filed in

USA: US10/953513 date: 30/9/04,

Europe: EP745390.9 date: 09/04,

Canada: 2481107 date: 09/04,

Austalia: 203242955 date: 09/04,

Israel: 164242 date: 23/09/04

entitled "PROTEIN-BASED STREPTOCOCCUS PNEUMONIAE VACCINE"