LOS ANGELES, June 09, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- via NetworkWire -- Multiverse Investment Fund I, LP, a private venture capital fund dedicated to long-term capital investment in companies offering significant social impact, today announces that one of its 12 portfolio companies, Vault Pharma, is working with UCLA and other universities to incorporate its bioparticle-based delivery system in potential COVID-19 vaccination(s).
Jack Kavanaugh, a general manager of Multiverse Investment Fund and chairman of Vault Pharma, stated, “The widespread promise of this technology is extraordinary. We congratulate our world-renowned scientific team on this milestone in modifying Vault Pharma technology to help aid in the fight against the coronavirus.”
“Vaults” are multi-subunit nanoparticle protein containers that exist in every cell of most animals on the planet. Humans have roughly 10,000 or more nanoparticles per cell. Vaults can carry active therapeutic agents and thus become an effective delivery system. Vault-based therapies for diseases such as lung cancer and human papillomavirus are currently under development.
“A vaccine packaged in vaults is also taken up by antigen-presenting cells involved in triggering a cellular immune response, which actively fights disease by attacking and killing infected cells,” stated Leonard Rome, co-founder of Vault Pharma and a distinguished professor of biological chemistry as well as associate director of the California NanoSystems Institute at UCLA. “In addition, cellular immune responses can impart lasting memory, allowing resistance to later virus exposure.”
Vault Pharma is designing its vaccine with the Rome Lab and research teams led by Dr. Otto Yang, a professor of medicine in the division of infectious diseases at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, as well as with Jeff F. Miller, UCLA’s Fred Kavli Professor of NanoSystems Sciences and the director of CNSI.
Candidate vaccines will be tested by Northern Arizona University’s Todd French, assistant professor of biological sciences, who is developing animal models for studying coronavirus in NAU’s COVID-19 Testing Service Center. French is an expert in the mechanisms that make infectious microbes more dangerous.
For potential clinical trials, production of vaccine-laden vaults will be scaled up at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln Biological Process Development Facility, which manufactures engineered proteins and peptides for research and clinical trials.
As the founder, chairman and CEO of ZetaRx Biosciences, which later became the core of Juno Therapeutics, Dr. Jack Kavanaugh is a pioneer in bringing advanced cellular therapies to market. He is credited with successfully combining the intellectual property from globally recognized health care and research institutions, assembling a highly respected management team, and leading the development of the FDA clinical trial strategy – resulting in immunotherapies that have shown great promise in terminal cancer remission and actually yielded the best results ever in the treatment of terminal cancer. Juno Therapeutics was purchased in 2018 by Cellgene for an enterprise value of $10.1 billion.
About Multiverse Investment Fund I, LP
Multiverse Investment Fund I, LP (“Multiverse,” or the “Fund”) is a private venture capital fund that invests in early-, developmental- and clinical-stage companies in the life science, materials science and technology sectors. Multiverse’s mission is to achieve long-term capital appreciation through investments in profound opportunities and, as a general proposition, in companies building products with the potential to produce a positive and significant social impact. For more information, please visit the Multiverse website at https://www.multiverseinvestmentfund.com/.
About Vault Pharma
Vault Pharma is an emerging biotechnology company co-founded by Leonard H. Rome, distinguished professor of biological chemistry and associate director of the California NanoSystems Institute at UCLA, and is headquartered on campus at CNSI’s Magnify incubator. The Magnify incubator helps to advance nanoscience and technology-based startups by offering entrepreneurs laboratory and co-working space, as well as access to specialized UCLA research facilities. For more information, visit https://vaultpharma.com/.
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No investment advice, financial advice, tax advice, or legal advice is provided by Multiverse Fund I GP, LLC through this press release, and no person is authorized to use this press release for those purposes. Therefore, this press release is not a recommendation to invest in any Multiverse Fund I GP, LLC investment strategy or buy or sell interests (“interests”) in Multiverse Investment Fund I, LP (the “Fund”) or Vault Pharma or any other portfolio or other company). Prospective investors should conduct their own investigations in relation to the matters referred to in this press release and are recommended to consult their own advisers in relation to such matters. This press release is not an offer to sell securities of the Fund, Vault Pharma or a solicitation of offers to buy any such securities. Securities of the Fund are offered to selected investors only by means of a complete offering memorandum and related subscription materials which contain significant additional information about the terms of an investment in the Fund (such documents, the “Offering Documents”). Any decision to invest must be based solely upon the information set forth in the Offering documents, regardless of any information investors may have been otherwise furnished, including this presentation.
Some of the statements in this press release may be forward-looking statements or statements of future expectations based on currently available information. Such statements are naturally subject to risks and uncertainties. Factors such as the development of general economic conditions, future market conditions, unusual catastrophic loss events, changes in the capital markets and other circumstances may cause the actual events or results to be materially different from those anticipated by such statements. Multiverse Investment Fund I, LP and Multiverse Fund I GP, LLC do not make any representation or warranty, express or implied, as to the accuracy, completeness or updated status of such statements, and no outside third party has confirmed the information in this press release. Therefore, in no case whatsoever will Multiverse Investment Fund I, LP, Multiverse Investment Fund I GP, LLC or any affiliate companies or management be liable to anyone for any decision made or action taken in conjunction with the information and/or statements in this press release or for any related damages.
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