FLUX: Bringing a universal flu vaccine to clinical readiness

Every year, approximately 10% of global population suffer symptomatic flu, leading to up to 5 million severe cases and >650,000 deaths. Seasonal influenza remains a devastating disease and pandemic flu a major threat that would cause >30 million deaths within the first 6 months. Current vaccines target highly variable, strain-specific surface viral antigens restricting duration of protection to a specific season and limiting efficacy (41% on average, 25% in elderly). We will circumvent the need for annual vaccine updates by - i) targeting the intraviral nucleoprotein (NP), highly conserved across influenza strains, and ii) transforming NP into a highly immunogenic antigen triggering robust immune responses. By targeting the full-length NP antigen, our universal flu vaccine could be a best-in-class candidate in terms of population and flu strains coverage. With a non-adjuvanted, highly purified recombinant protein composition and a scalable manufacturing process, the vaccine has a leading safety and cost profile.