Dyadic Announces Expanded Licensing Agreement to Develop & Commercialize Vaccines & Biologics for African Continent

Dyadic International, Inc. recently announced it signed an expanded licensing agreement for its C1-cell protein expression platform with South Africa’s Rubic One Health to develop, manufacture, commercialize, and distribute affordable vaccines and biologics for human and animal health in underserved African countries.

“In our initial 2021 agreement with Rubic, Dyadic successfully transferred the C1 platform technology for the discovery, development, manufacturing, and distribution of C1 produced vaccines and biologics, such as monoclonal antibodies. We’ve since progressed to the ongoing Phase 1 first in human trial for the DYAI-100 recombinant RBD booster vaccine candidate for COVID-19, which has facilitated the expansion of our licensing agreement with Rubic. The expanded agreement provides Rubic with the ability to broaden its potential to commercialize both human and animal health products for Africa using our C1 technology. Our collaborators continue to observe the advantages of the C1 protein production platform, which include accelerated development timelines, improved productivity, and lower manufacturing costs,” stated Mark Emalfarb, Dyadic’s CEO.

“Rubic’s mission is to develop a solution for the discovery, development, evaluation, and manufacture of high-quality, cost-effective, human and animal vaccines and therapeutic proteins, for distribution primarily in the African markets,” said Dr. Julian Naidoo, CEO of Rubic One Health.

“It is imperative that African nations acquire and commercialize technology and manufacturing capabilities necessary to deploy preventative and therapeutic treatments for broad populations, both affordably and timely. Expanding our partnership with Dyadic affords Rubic increased capabilities to rapidly develop, manufacture and distribute a broader portfolio of high-quality human and animal health vaccines and biologic drugs, without the need for extreme temperature control requirements, more efficiently, in less time, and at an affordable cost. This agreement will help Rubic achieve its strategic goal of providing an end-to-end solution for vaccine and drug development, production, and distribution, for the African continent,” added Dr. Julian Naidoo.

Rubic One Health is made up of promoters of a project representing public health, medical, academia, vaccine technology, technology transfer and economic sectors. Development and implementation of vaccine technologies is overseen by leading academics directed by the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg (Wits) academic team, with the support of Wits Health Consortium (WHC), a wholly owned company of Wits. The Consortium has a long track record in the fields of vaccinology, public health medicine, clinical trials, research, technology transfer, project management and health economics. This entity coordinates the project, ensuring a synergistic outcome between the components of drug discovery/research and manufacture. It is also responsible for overseeing the strategic and operational direction of each project to ensure that each project moves forward in a sustainable, Afro-centric manner, rooted in public good. For more information, visit http://www.rubiconehealth.co.za for additional information.

DYAI-100, also known as C1-SARS-CoV-2 RBD vaccine, is a novel receptor-binding domain (RBD) recombinant protein booster vaccine candidate, highly expressed in Dyadic’s proprietary C1-cell protein production platform for the prevention of COVID-19. The C1-SARS-CoV-2 RBD vaccine drug product consists of the SARS-CoV-2 RBD adjuvanted with Alhydrogel 85 2%.

Dyadic International, Inc. is a global biotechnology company focused on building innovative microbial platforms to address the growing demand for global protein bioproduction and unmet clinical needs for effective, affordable, and accessible biopharmaceutical products and alternative proteins for human and animal health.

Dyadic’s gene expression and protein production platforms are based on the highly productive and scalable fungus Thermothelomyces heterothallica (formerly Myceliophthora thermophila). Our lead technology, C1-cell protein production platform, is based on an industrially proven microorganism (named C1), which is currently used to speed development, lower production costs, and improve performance of biologic vaccines and drugs at flexible commercial scales for the human and animal health markets. Dyadic has also developed the Dapibus™ filamentous fungal based microbial protein production platform to enable the rapid development and large-scale manufacture of low-cost proteins, metabolites, and other biologic products for use in non-pharmaceutical applications, such as food, nutrition, and wellness.

With a passion to enable our partners and collaborators to develop effective preventative and therapeutic treatments in both developed and emerging countries, Dyadic is building an active pipeline by advancing its proprietary microbial platform technologies, including our lead asset DYAI-100 COVID-19 vaccine candidate, as well as other biologic vaccines, antibodies, and other biological products. For more information, visit http://www.dyadic.com.