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This week, weโre speaking with Dr Rob Coleman about his company, Codagenix: A clinical-stage biotech company developing vaccine products against influenza, respiratory syncytial virus, dengue virus, and many othersโฆ
๐ฌ Quote from the pod:
โThe selection of the appropriate investor that you, that not just willing to write a check but actually sort of gets the sort of mission of the company is actually very vital. Because when you do stumble, they're not just gonna disappear or figure out how to, you know, triage or get some of their money back, but rather we'll help you solve the problems, willing to provide additional capital to see you through a tougher periodโ
๐ Key insights from the episode:
On the birth of Codagenix: Rob claims that the core technology underpinning the success of Codgaenix โwas actually my thesisโฆ thesis work published in Scienceโ and the continuation of their success was dependent on the expertise of their founding team, including Dr. Eckard Wimmer at Stony Brook University - as Rob claims, โa godfather of synthetic biologyโ. Rob outlines that Codagenix is fundamentally a โsynthetic biology companyโฆ(with) a platform for vaccine development that really came out of Eckardโs lab and my thesis work.โ
On changing roles: Rob claims to be โboth custodian and CEOโ when the company was founded, and as it has grown to a current team of 28 people, his role is now more managerial and less scientific.
On what Codagenix does differently with vaccine development: โI think because of the pandemic, everyone thinks they're an expert vaccinologist right nowโ, Rob claims, but that he visualises that the first-generation covid-19 vaccines as โplatformsโ to manipulate and develop other vaccines from and build on the success of other approaches using โCogensโ: โTraditional live vaccines were made by completely random genetic change. The scientist literally randomly mutated the measles virus, hoping it would become a safe and effective vaccineโฆ Cogens can solve these two problems using synthetic biologyโ.
On mail-ordering a virus, and being scrappy: Robโs co-founder, Eckard, was the first person to synthesize a virus from small pieces of DNA as part of their work, with Rob claiming that he โliterally ordered poliovirus through the mail. He ordered a hundred nucleotide long pieces of DNA, stitched them all together, put 'em in a test tube and poof, out came the fully replicating poliovirusโ. From this, they were able to further develop the algorithm that Codagenix uses to โsequenceโฆ and design a virus however we see fit...now we've rationally designed a live attenuated vaccine that can't grow in human cellsโ. In this way, they have also developed โa next generation approach to make the first class of vaccines that can actually be safe and really sort of the bedrock of vaccinology from the beginningโ.
On working with the World Health Organization: Codagenix recently collaborated with the WHO on a project piloted in India to create an intranasal covid-19 vaccine with easy storage requirements that could also provide mucosal immunity to recipients: โIt's probably in the last placebo controlled vaccine trial for covid that's occurring where we're looking essentially for efficacy versus placebo in a very expansive phase threeโ. To date, they have dosed around 10,000 individuals as part of this work.
On racing to the vaccine โendโ with Pfizer: Rob claims that the advent of covid-19 meant that the Codagenix team was โall hands on deckโ and that as part of the vaccines race, โWe were only about five months behind Pfizer when they started their phase one and when we had permission from, from the UK MHRA to start dosing in London. So for us, that was already a great achievementโ. The limits of being a comparatively smaller company aside, however, the impact of covid-19 on Codagenixโs other programs meant that โthere just wasn't interestโ and โthere was a natural slowdown in some of our other very exciting programs like our intranasal RSV and our Universal Flu Program.. but we've been able to revive those and they weren't completely put in the freezer.โ
On vaccine fatigue: โI think it's fair for me to say that there's a bit of fatigue with the injectable vaccinesโฆpeople are just getting a little bit tired of getting their boosters. I think they're a little bit tired of the virus.โ Poignantly, Rob addresses that โโฆpeople are being vaccinated, are still getting illโ, which has influenced a lot of their company mission and direction in coming to the market with differentiated products such as intranasal vaccines โthat can provide broader immunity and maybe slow down the rate of transmission that there may be a re renewed interest, especially in advancer during the next wave.โ
On convincing investors to give them money: Rob states that investors in the covid-19 space still express uncertainty about exactly what the market will look like in the near future, and indeed how regulators will operate in the space - โThe regulators are still sorting what they wanna do with regards to how we'll have a seasonal vaccine and what the market will look like and what the surrogate endpoint may be, or requirements to make a seasonal vaccineโ. As such, diversifying to ensure that there is investment interest in their other programs such as oncology and RSV - โThose are very tangibleโ - where โwe have a solution there that that others may not.โ
On diversifying investor risk: Rob also claims that Codagenix were historically criticised for having too many programs, but recognises that โ the script has flippedโ given the failure of companies with binary programs in the biotech industry seeing โa massive lossโฆFor the investors, for the insiders, we've been very fiscally responsible and we've built a very diverse pipeline that will have multiple inflection points over the next 12, 24 months, where it's not all the proverbial eggs in the covid basketโ, in turn diversifying the risk for their investors.
On whatโs next for the business: Rob cites that owing to the โbad RSV seasonโฆthere's actually an urgent need for a vaccine in particular for the six month and two year old populationโ, which is Codagenixโs next target with a fast track designation to support this development and the data necessary.
On a โtypical dayโ in the business: Rob claims that his day typically starts with early calls to clients and potential partners, followed by calls or in-person meetings with the companyโs preclinical vaccines team as part of a data review - others days may involve travel, and โsome days I'll be only talking to lawyers and accountants, which is like my least favorite activityโฆ It's all fun though.โ
On some of the keys to his success: Working in Codagenix is Robโs โfirst job out of PhDโ and the success of which he credits to his team but also to โlong-term committed investors who are focused on the science understand that biotech takes a long timeโฆ there are long timelines in vaccine developmentโ.
๐ Background:
Founded:ย 2011
Location:ย Farmingdale, New York
IPO status:ย Private
Industry:ย Biotechnology Research
Market size: USD $
Employees:ย 11-50 employees
Funding stage: Series B
Total funding to date: USD $25 million
๐ What:
A clinical-stage biotech company that designs and develops several vaccine candidates in tandem owing to a with a rational vaccine design platform aimed at infectious diseases and cancer.
Their algorithm and pipeline allows for identifying the genetic sequence of a given wild-type virus to developing a viable candidate vaccine or therapeutic within weeksโand faster, if needed, as new outbreak strains are identified.
Codagenix have also developed vaccines for agriculture and companion animals with the aim of โstrengthening our food chain, make pets healthier and lower our global reliance on antibioticsโ.
๐ง How:
Technology: Their proprietary vaccine platform which develops โcodon deoptimized live vaccine candidatesโ aims to overcome the drawbacks encountered in traditional live attenuated vaccine development, delivering all the benefits of live vaccines on short timelines and with unparalleled genetic stability.
๐ Company tagline:
โEngineering viruses to transform global healthโ
๐ Find out more about Codagenix:
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