Virica Biotech develops Viral Sensitizers (VSE™), patented small molecules that transiently attenuate innate cellular antiviral defenses to enhance viral vector production in gene therapy and vaccine applications. By improving yields and scalability across over 50 evaluated applications, VSEs enable more efficient manufacturing processes for critical viral products.
Funding
$9.5M raised to dateRaised to date based on public sources. This may differ from the amount the company actually raised and is based only on what is publicly available on the internet.
NRFounders
Product
Problem
Viral vector manufacturing for gene therapies and vaccines faces challenges due to innate cellular antiviral defenses, which limit viral production, resulting in lower yields, reduced efficiency, and scalability issues. Current optimization technologies often fail to adequately address these fundamental cellular responses.
Solution
Virica Biotech develops Viral Sensitizers (VSEs), a library of patented small molecules designed to transiently attenuate innate antiviral pathways in cells, thereby enhancing virus production. VSEs are introduced at the time of infection or transfection and are cleared before downstream processing. The VSEs alter cellular signaling to dampen antiviral defenses, unlocking higher yields, improving critical quality attributes (CQAs), and enabling consistent scale-up across various viral vector manufacturing applications. Virica's High Throughput Virology (HTV™) platform and Design of Experiments (DoE) services facilitate the identification of optimal VSE combinations for specific cell substrates and target viral products.
Target Audience
The primary target audience includes cell and gene therapy manufacturers and vaccine producers seeking to improve viral vector yields and scalability in their manufacturing processes.
Features
- Patented small molecule media additives that transiently attenuate antiviral pathways in cells
- Enhances viral titer and vector quality attributes
- Applicable to a wide range of cell lines and viral products, including AAV, lentivirus, and influenza
- Proprietary High Throughput Virology (HTV™) platform for identifying optimal VSE combinations
- Design of Experiments (DoE) services for process optimization
- Integrates into upstream processes as ancillary material without disrupting existing workflows
- Cleared from final products by standard purification methods