Sanofi and ModeX’s Epstein-Barr vaccine; plus San Raffaele, Walden and more

Sanofi (Euronext:SAN; NASDAQ:SNY), ModeX Therapeutics Inc. and NIH researchers showed in Science Translational Medicine a bivalent Epstein-Barr virus nanoparticle vaccine induced neutralizing antibodies in mice, ferrets and nonhuman primates. Passive transfer of serum from vaccinated mice into humanized mice protected them from a viral challenge.

Sanofi and a team led by Luigi Naldini and Alessio Cantore at  San Raffaele Scientific Institute engineered coagulation factor VIII transgenes to increase expression for use as a lentiviral gene therapy to treat hemophilia A. Shown in Nature Communications, codon usage optimization improved expression 10-20-fold in hemophilia A mice and adding an XTEN peptide, designed to prolong half-life, provided an additional over 10-fold increase in factor VIII in mice and non-human primates...