Oxford Nanopore moves into mRNA vaccine testing as researchers report faster quality control process

Researchers at the University of Queensland say they’ve developed a faster way to put mRNA vaccines through quality control testing, according to a study published today in Nature Communications.

Oxford Nanopore, the company whose technology is integral to the process, is touting the findings as it looks for an edge in the increasingly competitive space of genetic sequencing. Companies like Illumina focus on reading DNA for research or diagnostic purposes, but Oxford Nanopore believes mRNA vaccines and therapeutics are the next frontier.

Tim Mercer

Manufacturing advances have led to billions of doses of mRNA vaccines, and the technology is gaining in prominence. But it is expensive and time-consuming to ensure vaccines meet the standards for scale, purity and integrity.

The issue is familiar to BASE, a division at the University of Queensland, which manufactures mRNA vaccines.

There, researchers developed a streamlined workup that directly analyzes each mRNA vaccine molecule. By doing so, they can detect so-called nucleotide modifications that play a key role in vaccine performance. Results are available essentially in real time, and do away with the traditional DNA sequencing model.

“For me, this is a real opportunity to introduce to the manufacturer field the opportunities in next-generation sequencing, in particular RNA sequencing for mRNA vaccines and therapies,” said Tim Mercer, director of BASE and a senior study author.

Louisa Ludbrook

The scientists tapped Oxford’s ability to decode lengthy RNA stretches, a process that involves filtering RNA strands through tiny holes, or nanopores. Most sequencing machines reassemble smaller bits of genetic code.

Oxford Nanopore believes the process described in the paper will become central to the development and manufacturing of mRNA products. This is at a moment when companies like Moderna are moving toward personalized therapeutics, including cancer therapies.

“That need to really reduce the turnaround for manufacture and quality control becomes much more significant,” said Louisa Ludbrook, vice president of commercial market development at Oxford Nanopore.

The company is looking for any advantage it can get as competition heats up in the sequencing market. It includes Pacific Biosciences, or PacBio, another company known for reading long stretches of DNA. Illumina, the market leader, was once slated to acquire PacBio but now finds itself in competition with the company.

Bruce Y. Lee

Bruce Y. Lee, a professor of health policy and management at the City University of New York, who has no ties to the study, said the findings appear promising. But he said it’s difficult to compare the results to other vaccine manufacturing efforts because of limited public data.

“That doesn’t mean that there were no quality checks that were done with the Covid-19 vaccines but it is important for things to be clearer in terms of what quality checks have been actually done,” said Lee.

Social image: Kim Ryu for Endpoints News

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