1 April 2019 - - US-based biotechnology company Meissa Vaccines has closed a USD 3.4m seed round to further develop its investigational vaccine for respiratory syncytial virus, the company said.

The financing included numerous undisclosed individual investors and will be used to advance the company's RSV vaccine candidate into clinical trials.

To support these efforts, Meissa has reported having had a successful FDA pre-IND meeting, completed manufacturing of clinical trial material, and recruited two outside industry veterans, Kenneth Kelley and William Daly, to join the company's board of directors.

Prior to this latest seed round, Meissa had been awarded several highly competitive small business innovation research grants from the National Institutes of Health to fund Meissa's vaccine research and development.

Meissa completed a pre-Investigational New Drug meeting with the US Food and Drug Administration last year to ensure the company's preclinical work was appropriately focused and would enable eventual human testing.

The seed funds have already enabled completion of manufacturing of clinical trial materials for Phase 1 and Phase 2 testing in adults and children, as well as for the advancement of vaccine candidates for human metapneumovirus and parainfluenza virus using the same technology platform.

Meissa is a private biotech company focused on the advancement of vaccines for respiratory syncytial virus, the largest unmet respiratory medical need in pediatrics, and human metapneumovirus and parainfluenza virus, the next most significant respiratory diseases worldwide.

Meissa was founded on proprietary technologies employing synthetic biologic and reverse genetics to create safer, more effective live vaccines.

The technology is exclusively licensed from Emory University.