Corium Reports Promising Data For Needle-Free Transdermal Inflienza Vaccine

Corium International, Inc.

, a commercial-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on the development, manufacture and commercialization of specialty transdermal products, today announced the publication of promising data on the use of its needle-free transdermal system to deliver influenza vaccine in the June 9, 2015 issue of Vaccine, a pre-eminent publication on vaccines and vaccination. The manuscript, entitled "Fabrication of cell culture-derived influenza vaccine dissolvable microstructures and evaluation of immunogenicity in guinea pigs," details results of a preclinical study conducted by Novartis Vaccines and Corium. Importantly, the results demonstrate the compatibility of Corium's MicroCor® needle-free transdermal system with cell culture-derived influenza vaccines, and establish its potential as a next-generation vaccine delivery system. In the study, trivalent seasonal influenza cell culture-derived antigens were successfully fabricated for in vivo administration using the MicroCor system and resulted in immunization results comparable to the control vaccine delivered by intramuscular injection. In addition, preliminary data related to the incorporation of influenza antigens within the polymer matrix indicate stability of the antigens in the dried state, suggesting potential for longer-term stability at room temperature. Authors of the paper conclude that "taken together, utilization of cell culture-based production of influenza vaccines along with microstructure delivery could potentially change the way vaccines are administered, particularly in the event of a pandemic." "There is a significant unmet need for improving influenza vaccine accessibility by providing easy to use and needle-free delivery systems," said Parminder "Bobby" Singh, Ph.D., Chief Technology Officer and Vice President, R&D at Corium and a co-author of the paper. "We believe that use of our MicroCor technology to deliver influenza vaccine could provide significant benefit through improved immunization outcomes and more convenient vaccine delivery based on the results of this study."