Brisbane scientist Professor Mark Kendall and his team invented the Nanopatch. Photo: Kendall/D2G2 group
Brisbane-based researchers hope to start human trials this year on a needle-less patch with the potential to transform vaccination, thanks to a $25 million funding boost.
The company behind the tiny Nanopatch aims to revolutionise vaccination by tackling three of the main difficulties with the process.
Most simply, instead of a needle it uses thousands of microscopic points to inject vaccines directly into immune cells in the skin, removing a barrier for an estimated 10 per cent of the population with needle phobia.
The Nanopatch has thousands of microscopic points, which can inject disease-breaking vaccines into the skin. Photo: Kendall/D2G2 group
Potentially more groundbreaking is a cost-saving 100-fold reduction in the necessary dose and removing the need for refrigeration.
“With the Nanopatch we don’t need refrigeration because the vaccine is in dry form,” inventor Professor Mark Kendall said.
“It’s estimated that about half of the vaccines used in Africa aren’t working properly because the cold chain has fallen over. It’s significant.”
Professor Kendall first started work on the vaccine delivery system in 2004 at the University of Queensland’s Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology and started Vaxxas in 2011 with a $15 million funding round.
That funding allowed the team, which now includes 25 scientists, to take the vaccine through animal trials.
The $25 million second funding round led by Australian venture capital firm Oneventures will take the Nanopatch through the first safety-focused phase of human trials and into the second round, which will test efficacy.
Clinical trials in Brisbane will focus on using the patch to administer an influenza vaccine while trials in conjunction with the World Health Organisation are slated for next year in Cuba and will test its applications for polio.
Professor Kendall said conceptually the technology could be applied to all classes of vaccine following success in animal testing.
“There’s also the longer term prospect of the Nanopatch being self administered,” he said.
“It’s a simply used device so you may not necessarily need a trained practitioner
“When you put together all of these benefits you can imagine the scenario of a pandemic or even routine vaccination potentially where the Nanopatch could be posted out to people to self administer or even air-dropped into a crisis zone.”