Blue Water Vaccines to develop strep pneumo vaccine from St. Jude Children’s research

NORWOOD, Ohio, Feb. 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — Blue Water Vaccines Inc., a biopharmaceutical company focused on creating transformative vaccines solving global health challenges, has entered into an exclusive worldwide license agreement for the development of a Streptococcus Pneumoniae vaccine with St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital (“St. Jude”), the nation’s leading hospital dedicated to understanding, treating and curing childhood cancer and other life-threatening diseases.

The technology was developed in the laboratory of Jason Rosch, Ph.D., Department of Infectious Diseases at St. Jude.

Acute otitis media caused by Streptococcus pneumoniae remains one of the most common infectious diseases worldwide despite widespread vaccination. A major limitation of the currently licensed pneumococcal vaccines is the lack of efficacy against mucosal disease manifestations such as acute otitis media, acute bacterial sinusitis and pneumonia.

“We sought to generate a novel class of live vaccines that are fully attenuated and retain all major antigenic virulence proteins,” Rosch said. “A live vaccine candidate based on deletion of the signal recognition pathway component ftsY induced potent, serotype-independent protection against otitis media, sinusitis, pneumonia and invasive pneumococcal disease.” In studies, the live vaccine induced a strong serum IgG2a and IgG2b response that correlated with CD4+ T-cell mediated class switching.

“We are excited to develop a vaccine that has the potential to provide a significant benefit to a great number of patients worldwide,” said Joseph Hernandez, Chief Executive Officer of Blue Water Vaccines. “St. Jude is a global leader in medical research and a beacon of hope for families all over the world facing serious medical conditions. We are thrilled to add this ground-breaking technology to our development portfolio.”

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Blue Water Vaccines, Inc. is a biopharmaceutical company focused on developing transformational vaccines to address significant health challenges globally. Blue Water Vaccines has partnered with the University of Oxford to develop a novel universal influenza vaccine that protects against all influenza strains. For more information, visit http://www.bluewatervaccines.com.

St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital is leading the way the world understands, treats and cures childhood cancer and other life-threatening diseases. It is the only National Cancer Institute- designated Comprehensive Cancer Center devoted solely to children. Treatments developed at St. Jude have helped push the overall childhood cancer survival rate from 20% to 80% since the hospital opened more than 50 years ago. St. Jude freely shares the breakthroughs it makes, and every child saved at St. Jude means doctors and scientists worldwide can use that knowledge to save thousands more children. Families never receive a bill from St. Jude for treatment, travel, housing and food — because all a family should worry about is helping their child live. To learn more, visit http://www.stjude.org or follow St. Jude on social media at @stjuderesearch.

For further information, please contact:

For Blue Water Vaccines:

Erin Henderson

Director, Corporate Relations

Phone: 404-405-6315

[email protected]

For St. Jude:

Michael Sheffield

Desk: (901) 595-0221

Cell: (901) 275-9065

[email protected]

[email protected]