Pentamer Pharmaceuticals begins crowdfunding campaign for Ebola vaccine
US company has developed NoBola vaccine and starts fund to support vaccine characterisation and efficacy studies
US biopharmaceutical company Pentamer Pharmaceuticals has begun a crowdfunding campaign for the development of its Ebola vaccine.
Stephen Hall, Founder and CEO of Pentamer, developed a vaccine technology called NodaVax that has produced protective vaccines against other pathogens such as Anthrax.
Pentamer has developed NoBola, a vaccine against Ebola using this technology and has started the crowdfunding campaign to help support vaccine characterisation and efficacy studies. Hall claims that Pentamer is the first company to seek crowdfunding for the development of an Ebola vaccine. Crowdfunding, a method of raising capital in small amounts from a large group of people using the Internet and social media, pools funds, thereby minimising the risk on a single investment.
'Traditional investors have not been enthusiastic about funding the development of a vaccine that until now has been a third-world problem,' said Hall.
'Even now that Ebola has entered other countries, the traditional investor has still not shown much interest. They are just driven too much by economic considerations. However, I believe they will come around as we get closer to an Ebola vaccine.
'People that contribute to the development of Pentamer's Ebola vaccine can directly benefit as well as knowing that their contribution is a humanitarian act. Furthermore, I think we all need to have some skin in the game in order to beat Ebola,' he added.
Hall believes that with the company's internal R&D budget and crowdfunding support, his team can demonstrate the efficacy of its Ebola vaccine.
This would provide the proof of concept necessary for the US government to test the vaccine in non-human primate challenge trials.
Hall believes that traditional investors will then step up to help fund the challenge trials and vaccine manufacturing. If not, he is confident that a second crowdfunding campaign would push the vaccine through to the public.
Access Pentamer's crowdfunding campaign here.