The Pandemic Institute announced in August 2024 that it has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Pharma Latch after attending the Congress in Washington this April. The collaboration will pursue several projects focused on optimising technology for safe, effective, and acceptable vaccines. Pharma Latch’s “unique” technology allows simple and efficient intradermal vaccine delivery and a “near pain free solution”. This has been identified by The Pandemic Institute as a promising avenue to encourage vaccine uptake.
Pharma Latch devices
Pharma Latch states that intradermal delivery can “enhance the efficacy” of various vaccine platforms. The technology “eliminates” user-dependency and variability associated with traditional intradermal injection techniques. The “Latch” platform uses opposing arrays of hypodermic needles of fixed length and angles. They work in pairs when deployed to establish a “slight stretching” of the skin, enabling full penetration of the needles to a predetermined depth.
Benefits include:
- Improved immune response
- Dose sparing
- Improved patient compliance and experience
- Complete dose delivery
- Simple to use devices
- High payload capability
- Low-cost, highly scalable device
Prevent and respond
The Pandemic Institute has five major research themes: Predict, Prepare, Prevent, Respond, and Recover. Central to these efforts is the development of new vaccines and community engagement to understand how to increase their acceptability. Some of the projects the collaboration will progress include:
- Patient acceptability of intradermal injection technology
- Assess the immune response when using the new technology in pre-clinical trials
- Assess how the technology works in delivering vaccines in a clinical trial
Professor Cathy Montgomery, Professor of Psychopharmacology and Health Inequalities at Liverpool John Moores University is “excited to be working with Pharma Latch to explore this new device” and uncovering the “benefits it could bring” to increasing uptake.
“Vaccine hesitancy is a rising concern in controlling infectious diseases, and anxiety around perceived pain and blood injection injury phobia (needle phobia) can be strong factors to hesitancy.”
Professor Tom Solomon CBE, University of Liverpool’s Infection, Veterinary, and Ecological Sciences Institute and Director of The Pandemic Institute is also “excited to be working with Pharma Latch going forward”.
“This new collaboration showcases what The Pandemic Institute does best – bringing together key people from across our partnership with external partners to ensure that we are putting things in place now for when the next pandemic emerges.”
Pharma Latch’s CEO, Ronan Byrne, is “delighted” with the partnership.
“We are impressed with both the breadth of ability and resources available and excited about the planned projects we will be looking to progress together.”
VaccineNation is thrilled to see the Washington Congress mentioned by The Pandemic Institute, particularly as Pharma Latch joined us in the start-up zone this year, and we look forward to following the progress made by this collaboration. For your chance to meet potential partners at the Congress in Europe this October get your tickets here, and don’t forget to subscribe to our weekly newsletters here.
