Nipah Virus Infection

Nipah virus (NiV) is an extremely dangerous paramyxovirus, which has its origin in Malaysia in the year 1998. Through our comprehensive range of services, we are dedicated to advancing the field of NiV vaccine and therapeutic development, with the ultimate goal of accelerating research and development for pharmaceutical companies around the world.

Introduction to Nipah Virus Infection

Nipah virus (NiV) is a zoonotic paramyxovirus that is highly pathogenic and has the ability to cause severe and often life threatening encephalitis among humans. First identified in Malaysia in 1998, sporadic NiV outbreaks have occurred in South and Southeast Asia. The most notable feature of the virus and one that draws the most attention is its capacity to cause varying clinical picture including asymptomatic infection and multi-system respiratory and neurologic disease with 75% of the affected population succumbing to the illness.

Fig.1 Taxonomy of Nipah virus and its transmission. (Mishra G., et al., 2024)

Vaccine Development for Nipah Virus Infection

• Subunit Vaccines
  Preclinical models have demonstrated the effectiveness of subunit vaccines. These vaccines focus on using key proteins from the virus, such as glycoprotein (G) or fusion (F) protein, to trigger an immune response. An example of this is the soluble G glycoprotein (sG) vaccine which has already been proven to stimulate neutralizing antibodies and protect several models, such as hamster and African green monkey.
• Viral Vector-Based Vaccines
  Harmless viruses are used to create NiV medical coding while viral vector-based vaccines utilize viruses as a medium. Some of these include the immunization that are built using adenovirus, virus of measles, and vesicular stomatitis virus. These vaccines have shown success in provoking strong immune responses and offering complete protection from lethal NiV challenges in animal models.
• mRNA Vaccines
  The development of mRNA vaccine technology has expanded the scope of NiV vaccine development greatly. Similar to the vaccines developed for COVID 19, mRNA can be used to create vaccines that respond robustly to viral proteins and stimulate immune systems. Preclinical studies have targeted mRNA creating NiV antigens to stimulate neutralizing antibodies and protect animal subjects.

Table 1 Development status of Nipah virus infection vaccine candidates. (Satterfield B A., 2016)

Therapeutics Development for Nipah Virus Infection

Antiviral Therapies

Therapies, Antiviral There are numerous antiviral medicines that have been tested against NiV. Broad spectrum antiviral called ribavirin has been successful on humans on a few occasions but its efficiency is still in question. Animal models have shown the infection free potential of Remdesivir and favipiravir.

Monoclonal Antibodies

Using targeted therapy that neutralizes viruses, monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) have a therapeutic advantage. m102.4 is one of the human monoclonal antibodies, which has proven successful in animal models and is currently undergoing Phase I clinical trials. This mAb has been considered one for post-exposure prophylaxis for some henipaviruses like NiV.

Our Services

We aim for the creation of vaccines and therapeutics for the new emerging infectious diseases as well as diseases like Nipah virus infection. Our services include:

• Vaccine Design and Development: Deploying advanced technologies for the design and development of NiV vaccines.
• Therapeutic Antibody Production: Creating neutralizing monoclonal antibodies for NiV.
• Preclinical research: Performing in vitro and in vivo studies related to all aspects of vaccine and therapeutic safety and effectiveness.

Vaccine Development

• Live-attenuated Vaccine
• Inactivated Vaccine
• Toxoid Vaccine
• Viral Vector Vaccine
• Virus-like Particles Vaccine
• Protein Subunit Vaccine
• mRNA Vaccine
• DNA Vaccine

Therapeutic Development

• Small Molecule Drug Development Services
• Therapeutic mRNA Development Services
• Therapeutic Antibody Development Services
• Cell Therapy Development Services

Infectious Disease Models

• NiV Intracerebral Inoculation Mouse Models
• NiV oral Inoculation Pig Models
• NiV Infection Syrian Hamster Models
• NiV Oronasally Inoculation Ferret Models

As a leading provider of biopharmaceutical R&D services, we are dedicated to advancing the fight against Nipah virus infection. If you are interested in our services, please feel free to contact us.

All of our services and products are intended for preclinical research use only and cannot be used to diagnose, treat or manage patients.