Intravacc, a Netherlands-based company that deals with translational research and development of preventive and therapeutic vaccines, announced on Wednesday that that it has received a contract from the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), to develop a prophylactic intranasal vaccine against Neisseria gonorrhoeae (NG).

The deal includes base and options that are likely to total USD14.6m.

The company is developing a prophylactic vaccine based on its proprietary outer membrane vesicles (OMV) platform technology. The NG vaccine is called NGoXIM and is based on gonococcal OMVs integrated with sustained-release microspheres containing recombinant human IL-12, and will be dosed intranasally.

Intravacc is developing a complete production process for NGoXIM to generate vaccine batches under Good Manufacturing Practices.