A new startup called Ovax Inc. has raised $10 million to develop a vaccine to prevent fentanyl deaths, aiming to commercialize academic research that prevents the drug from reaching the brain.
The startup has licensed intellectual property from researchers at the University of Houston who have successfully tested a fentanyl vaccine in rats. Ovax, which officially launches this week, plans to begin the first human trials of the vaccine early next year. If successful, the vaccine will block users of fentanyl from getting high or overdosing on the drug.
“The science is there,” said JR Rahn, the startup’s co-founder. “It just takes someone to be persistent” to bring it to market. Rahn previously founded Mind Medicine Inc., one of the first psychedelic medicine companies to go public. He called the fentanyl crisis a “public health emergency.”
Fentanyl is a cheap synthetic opioid that is often added to illegal drugs and counterfeit pills. More potent than heroin, it’s added in tiny amounts to make other drugs more powerful. In larger amounts – even as little as the equivalent of five grains of salt – it is lethal. Fentanyl poisoning has been the leading cause of death for Americans between age 18 and 45 since 2019, according to the Department of Homeland Security. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has estimated that synthetic opioids, primarily fentanyl, killed 204 people every day last year on average.
Rahn left MindMed in 2021 and began studying the fentanyl epidemic before founding Ovax last year. He led the initial funding round for the startup through his family office, Mach5 Capital, which he runs with his partner, crypto entrepreneur Olivier Roussy Newton. About a dozen other investors also contributed to the financing round, including Switzerland-based family office Zola Global and investor Jon Dishotsky.
Dishotsky called Rahn a visionary leader who has assembled a strong team with a product that, if it works, would prevent deaths. Unlike naloxone, which can be administered as a Narcan nasal spray to reverse the effects of a fentanyl overdose if administered promptly, the Ovax vaccine aims to prevent overdoses from ever happening by blunting the drug’s effects.
The company will be led by a team that includes Chief Operating Officer Stacy McIntosh, who previously served as head of regulatory affairs for Ridgeback Biotherapeutics, where she helped that company develop a monoclonal antibody therapeutic for Ebola. Its chief executive officer is Collin Gage, who previously led corporate development and fundraising for MindMed.
Gage said Ovax would likely raise another round from private investors and will ultimately need to raise hundreds of millions to bring a fentanyl vaccine to market successfully. The company hopes to move quickly. “This isn’t some rushed project,” Gage said. “We’re re-purposing what currently exists in vaccine technology.”
In addition to the University of Houston, the company is also negotiating with other academic groups working on similar projects. In academia, researchers have raised tens of millions in grants from the National Institutes of Health and the Defense Department on treatments to thwart opioids’ effects. Still, there has been no large-scale effort to commercialize that science.
Rahn said he expects to work closely with state and federal government agencies as the company develops its treatment.
“This mission is personal,” he said in a blog post announcing the startup. “Each member of our team of doctors, scientists, drug developers and financiers all have a deep connection to overdose and the resulting carnage it’s continuously causing America.”
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