E! 5934 Improved vaccines against intracellular pathogens in aquaculture - combining PHARMAQ and Isconova technology

The three year Eurostars project New-Vac was formally terminated August 1st 2014. Since the new immune stimulatory adjuvant for fish, Matrix F, was delivered to PHARMAQ in the end of May 2012 it has been tested in various vaccines against IPN, ISA and SRS. PHARMAQ has incorporated Matrix F in both water-in-oil (w/o) emulsion and water based vaccine formulations. None of these formulations, administered by either injection or immersion, show any significant adverse effects in salmon compared to relevant control vaccines. A challenge model for IPNV injection vaccines has successfully been established. Challenge trials using this model gave initially promising results for Matrix F vaccines. However, later trials have unfortunately demonstrated that the long-term protection induced by the vaccines is inadequate for commercialisation. During the project period, immersion vaccination has not been successful, most likely due to poor uptake of both antigens and Matrix F in fish. Furthermore, clinical trials have been unable to document any additive effect of using Matrix F in multivalent vaccines against ISA and SRS. Generally, it seems to be difficult to obtain an additive effect of Matrix F against intracellular pathogens in multivalent emulsion vaccines for injection.

Emerging and persistent diseases caused by virus and intracellular bacteria are a great problem for the salmonid aquaculture industry with million Euro losses annually. There are vaccines on the market against many of these diseases, but the products are sub-optimal with regard to efficacy, resulting in mortality also in vaccinated fish. The current project aims to solve this problem by developing several novel vaccines with markedly increased efficacy. There is a significant market demand for such vaccin es, as stated by two of the largest salmonid aquaculture companies in the world (User statements in the Annex of the Eurostars application). The new vaccines will also have a beneficial influence on fish health and welfare. In this project, PHARMAQ`s and Isconova`s complementary technologies will be combined in order to develop efficient vaccines against intracellular pathogens causing disease in salmonids. Isconova will be responsible for development and delivery of immune stimulatory adjuvants specifica lly designed for inducing cell mediated immunity in salmon. In addition, Isconova will evaluate the type of immune response obtained by the different vaccine formulations. PHARMAQ is the project leader in the consortium, and is responsible for vaccine dev elopment and formulation, clinical trials and all marketing activities.