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A pharmaceutical company focused on advancement of unmet vaccines against viruses that cause serious human diseases such as respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). Other viruses Meissa is developing vaccine against include metapneumovirus and parainfluenza virus. Meissa Vaccines applies their platform technology for viral genetic engineering to multiple pathogens.
Meissa's proprietary technologies use synthetic biologic and reverse genetics to generate live vaccines. The technology was licensed from Emory University. Meissa uses the technique of codon-deoptimization which allows the rational design of live attenuated virus vaccine candidates. Viral genes are recoded in a way that weakens them and makes them safer, while preserving their amino acid sequences and immunogenicity.
Meissa was founded by Dr. Martin Moore and Dr. Roderick Tang, a vaccine manufacturing expert. As of 2019 the company was a resident at the Johnson & Johnson Innovation JLABS in South San Francisco.
Meissa’s lead pre-clinical candidate MV-012-968 is a highly attenuated in primary human airway cells in vivo. In vivo studies the product are claimed to elicit high levels of neutralizing and mucosal antibodies.
