The big-time BARDA contracts keep rolling in, this time for infectious disease biotech and Merck partner ModeX Therapeutics.
The company has hauled in a $168 million contract from the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA)—a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services division—to develop antibody therapies for viral infections, namely COVID-19. The funding announced Thursday includes $59 million upfront with an additional $109 million contingent on reaching developmental milestones for diseases outside of COVID.
The initial upfront cash is expected to help pay for a phase 1 trial to test a novel “multispecific antibody” that could neutralize a range of COVID-19 variants, acting as both a treatment and preventative therapy.
ModeX’s selling point is its MSTAR platform, touted as being able to “incorporate four to six independent antibody binding sites into a single molecule.” Many of the therapeutic antibodies that the FDA authorized over the course of the pandemic were ultimately hampered by mutations to the virus’ binding sites, impacting their efficacy. The milestone payments will be associated with development work on other viruses, including influenza.
ModeX says that it will work on gene-based delivery methods using mRNA or DNA to further utilize “the body’s natural protein production processes.”
The nine-digit government contract follows a deal with Merck in March, with the two linking up to work on a vaccine for Epstein Barr virus. The New Jersey pharma handed over $50 million in upfront cash with more than $850 million in biobucks available to have exclusive rights to ModeX’s preclinical candidate, MDX-2201. Moderna and the National Institutes of Health each have similar assets in development.
The new funding spawns from BARDA’s Project NextGen initiative, aiming to develop a new class of vaccines and therapeutics against COVID-19 and the technologies that make them. Vaccine developer Gritstone Bio was awarded $433 million earlier this week to help fund a phase 2b trial for a next-generation COVID-19 vaccine.
The BARDA contract also serves as validation for OPKO Health, which acquired ModeX in May 2022. The overall value of the BARDA contract is more than half the $300 million OPKO paid to acquire the biotech.