The Canadian firm Entos Pharmaceuticals, Inc. said on 1 December that the government of Alberta has committed CAD$15.5m to fund the company’s planned construction of a biomanufacturing facility in the province. Entos will produce genetic medicines and vaccines, including COVID-19 vaccines.

The company has a proprietary genetic medicines platform and entered into a gene therapy drug delivery agreement with BioMarin Pharmaceutical Inc. in November. (Also see "Deal Watch: Sanofi To Tap Owkin’s AI, Machine Learning In Oncology" - Scrip, 18 November, 2021.) Entos also is developing a COVID-19 vaccine, called Covigenix. The plasmid DNA vaccine is being tested in a Phase I/II clinical trial. (Also see "World A Step Closer To First Human Plasmid DNA Vaccine As Zydus Seeks EUA" - Scrip, 2 July, 2021.)

The Alberta government’s investment in Entos is one of four grants totaling CAD$81.2m announced on 1 December. The University of Alberta received $55.1m for multiple vaccine, research and manufacturing projects; Applied Pharmaceutical Innovation was awarded CAD$5.6m to build an integrated research, commercialization and manufacturing cluster to support supplies of critical medicines; and Northern RNA received CAD$5m to support the RNA ecosystem in Alberta.

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