eff Baxter, the CEO of Cambridge-based biotech VBI Vaccines, was at an all-hands meeting with his staff at the company’s R&D facility in Canada discussing the worsening Covid-19 pandemic. “I remember it vividly,” he says. A staff member “took me aside and grabbed me by the collar and said, ‘Jeff, we have to do something!’”
VBI is now leading a new contingent of companies: smaller biotechs that are focused on creating a pan-coronavirus vaccine that can be effective against all variants of Covid-19, as well as coronaviruses that might have pandemic potential in the future. This is a contrast to the “vanguard 5,” whose next-generation vaccines are currently more geared towards booster shots and specific new variants.
In other words, instead of looking for the exact spike protein that signals a specific coronavirus infection in the body, VBI wants to teach the immune system to be on the lookout forsimilar spike protein. “Instead of having a very targeted approach, we’re trying to broaden it,” Anderson says. “There’s ample data out there that says the virus will find a way to mutate,” he continues, and the company also plans to catch it in the event it tries to disguise itself.