Long Island biotech lands $25M funding from Indian partner, others

Vaccine maker Codagenix Inc., which is commercializing biotechnology that originated at Stony Brook University, has landed a new $25 million funding round, the company said.

The financing is described as an extension of a $20 million funding round that closed in January 2020, bringing the total to $45 million.

Joining the latest funding is Codagenix's manufacturing partner, Serum Institute of India Pvt. Ltd., one of the largest vaccine producers in the world. Prior venture capital investors Euclidean Capital and Adjuvant Capital also contributed.

The expanded financing will help Farmingdale-based Codagenix pursue phase 1 clinical trials of its CodaVax-RSV vaccine candidate for respiratory syncytial virus in healthy infants and toddlers this year as well as a phase 1 trial for its CodaVax-H1N1 influenza vaccine.

“It is exciting to now have the Serum Institute of India as a direct investor, building upon our successful partnership in the development of CoviLiv," a COVID-19 vaccine candidate,, J. Robert Coleman, co-founder and chief executive of Codagenix, said in a statement issued Wednesday.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration last year granted fast-track designation to CodaVax-RSV. Fast-track designation aims to hasten the development and review of drugs and vaccines deemed to fill a medical void.

 The company also is participating in the World Health Organization's safety and efficacy study of its COVID-19 vaccine, CoviLiv. Unlike the Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines widely used in the United States, CoviLiv is administered through the nose, providing a less complex path to dosing populations in developing countries and elsewhere.

U.S. RSV cases climbed dramatically among children in early winter. The virus also poses a threat to older adults. The FDA has yet to approve a vaccine for RSV and is evaluating potential treatments and vaccines from major pharmaceutical companies, including Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline and AstraZeneca.

Codagenix's "synthetic biology" technology, pioneered by Dr. Eckard Wimmer at Stony Brook, allows it to create vaccines with live viruses rendered harmless when their genetic material has been recoded.

Codagenix is based at the Broad Hollow Bioscience Park on the campus of Farmingdale State College. The company also has facilities in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

By Ken Schachter

kenneth.schachter@newsday.comkschach

Ken Schachter covers corporate news, including technology and aerospace, and other business topics for Newsday. He has also worked at The Miami Herald and The Jerusalem Post.