SBRI: Vaccines for epidemic diseases: Readiness for clinical development and regulatory submission

This is a Small Business Research Initiative (SBRI), Official Development Assistance (ODA) competition funded by the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC). The aim of the competition is to develop further research in vaccine technologies, or vaccine platforms to address the 12 diseases identified by the UK Vaccine Network, or Disease X.

Proposals can address any part of the pre-clinical, non-clinical, manufacturing, or clinical pathway, within a 1 year time frame, making technology ready to be progressed further along the developmental pathway. Your proposals must meet ODA requirements for funding.

Applicants should consider:

• ease and speed of manufacture
• ease of use in low to middle income countries (LMIC) settings, for example, needle free and other modes of administration
• temperature stability
• single dose or a low number of boosts
• length of protection
• vaccine platforms that can be rapidly adapted for new or re-emerging diseases.
• vaccines that protect against several strains of a single pathogen, or against several pathogens.

Projects must start on 01 April 2022 and can last up to 12 months.

Applicant

To lead a project, you can:

• be an organisation of any size
• work alone or with others from business, research organisations, research and technology organisations or the third sector as subcontractors

A total of up to £10 million, inclusive of VAT, is allocated for this competition.

DHSC expect to fund up to 50 projects.

Your application must have at least 50% of the contract value attributed directly and exclusively to R&D services, including solution exploration and design. R&D can also include prototyping and field-testing the product or service.

The aim of this competition is to support further development of vaccine candidates and platform technologies. This will enable them to undergo clinical development and ultimately regulatory approval.

Your project can address any part of the pre-clinical, non-clinical, manufacturing, or clinical pathway. Vaccine candidates can be for human use or for animal use where there is an animal reservoir of the target diseases. Vaccine candidates or technologies must target Disease X, or one of the following diseases of epidemic potential identified by the UK Vaccine Network:

• Chikungunya
• Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever
• Ebola
• Hantavirus
• Lassa
• Marburg
• Middle East respiratory syndrome
• Nipah
• Plague
• Q fever
• Rift valley fever
• Zika

For full details of the work in scope and expertise required, click here.

Information and briefing events were held on 12th and 13th October: click here to watch the recording of the briefing event.

If you want help to find an organisation to work with, or additional advice, contact KTN’s Health team.