PopVax is an Indian biotechnology company based in Hyderabad building a novel thermostable, low-cost, and safe second-generation mRNA platform for rationally-designed broadly-protective multi-epitope vaccines. We’re starting with an open-source 4-8 °C refrigerator-stable booster candidate that is intended to protect against the entire sarbecovirus sub-family, including current and future strains of SARS-CoV-2 (the virus which causes COVID-19), and some other beta-coronaviruses such as MERS-CoV. PopVax's work has been funded primarily via collaboration with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (India) and Vitalik Buterin’s Balvi. Our India-based team of 30 researchers and senior manufacturing leaders includes experts in antigen design, mRNA sequence optimization and synthesis, and nucleic acid delivery from top Indian and North American research institutions, including CCMB, CDFD, IIT Delhi, IAVI, Harvard, Scripps, and UBC, as well as vaccine & biologics production veterans from companies including Sanofi, Biocon, Panacea Biotec and Biological E. The smaller scientific team for our US-based subsidiary, PopVax North America, is led by Moderna’s first Director of Chemistry, and includes several leading practitioners of de novo computationally-driven rational protein design for novel vaccine immunogens.
