12 January 2022 - - US-based pharmaceutical company Pfizer Inc. (NYSE: PFE) and Canada-based Acuitas Therapeutics, a company focused on developing lipid nanoparticle delivery systems to enable messenger RNA -based therapeutics, have entered into a Development and Option agreement under which Pfizer will have the option to license, on a non-exclusive basis, Acuitas' LNP technology for up to 10 targets for vaccine or therapeutic development, the companies said.

Acuitas' clinically-validated LNP technology is used in Comirnaty, the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine.

Founded in February 2009, Vancouver-based Acuitas Therapeutics is a private biotechnology company that specializes in the development of delivery systems for nucleic acid therapeutics based on lipid nanoparticles.

The company partners with pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies and academic institutes to advance nucleic acid therapeutics into clinical trials and to the marketplace.