N4 Pharma plc (AIM: N4P) has formed a research collaboration with the University of Adelaide (UoA) to help advance a novel DNA vaccine, the pharmaceutical company revealed on Tuesday.

N4 Pharma, which is developing silica nanoparticles for vaccines and therapeutics, has commissioned a research programme with UoA's Gowans laboratory to investigate the potential of the company's Nuvec system to increase the efficacy of the university's novel cytolytic DNA vaccine.

This vaccine encodes an immunogen and a cytolytic protein (perforin), and has been shown to be significantly more immunogenic than a canonical DNA vaccine (which encodes an alternative immunogen) when delivered via the intradermal route.

DNA vaccines are being developed as novel vaccine strategies to improve on the poor immunogenicity seen by traditional protein-based vaccines in cancer and infection (e.g. HIV, hepatitis C), N4 Pharma explained.

Despite UoA showing improved immunogenicity with its cytolytic DNA vaccine, the immune response is not sufficient to proceed into clinical trials. The purpose of the new research collaboration is to determine if the use of Nuvec can further increase the efficacy of the vaccine in vivo.

This work will not result in any financial benefit to the company and the research costs of approximately GBP30,000 will be borne by N4 Pharma.

The first phase of the study will test the delivery efficacy of combining the UoA cytolytic DNA vaccine with Nuvec. This will take around four weeks and will be followed by immunogenicity studies using different models, taking a further 24 weeks.