GreenLight Biosciences has entered a partnership with the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) for the development of Covid-19 vaccines, which offer broader protection against new variants and with durable effects.

The company will jointly design and analyse messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) Covid-19 vaccines in partnership with the NIH unit National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases’ Vaccine Research Center (VRC).

They intend to develop vaccines that provide lasting immune responses compared to existing vaccines. 

Furthermore, the parties will collaborate on the joint development of systems that accelerate the latest designs into clinical usage.

GreenLight Biosciences Human Health chief science officer Amin Khan said: “This is a tremendous opportunity for us to partner with a premier vaccine discovery team and use our mRNA platform to accelerate the development of coronavirus vaccines which are more broadly protective and durable than those currently available.”

According to the NIH, cooperative research and development (R&D) agreements (CRADAs) provide NIH investigators with the opportunity to collaborate with their colleagues from academia and the industry to seek similar research goals. 

The human health product candidates of GreenLight are currently in the pre-clinical stage.

In March, the company entered a licensing agreement with Serum Institute of India (SII) to expedite access to messenger RNA products in emerging markets worldwide.

Under this deal, SII will gain access to the technology platform of GreenLight for developing, producing and marketing up to three messenger RNA products in markets with a combined population of over five billion.

In November last year, GreenLight and Samsung Biologics entered a collaboration agreement to manufacture mRNA Covid-19 vaccines.

Cell & Gene Therapy coverage on Pharmaceutical Technology is supported by Cytiva.

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