Our Investment in Transformative Medicines – Precision Nanosystems Plans to Produce Millions of Vaccine Doses Every Year

By Brent MacDonald – Principal at Rising Tide VC

Precision Nanosystems Inc’s (PNI) mission is to accelerate the creation of transformative medicine that significantly impacts human well being. The Company creates end-to-end solutions that empower researchers to harness powerful nanotechnology to transform our understanding and treatment of rare diseases, cancer, and infectious diseases. Leading academic institutions, pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies in over 20 countries are using PNI solutions to solve the significant challenge of delivering nucleic acids, drug molecules, and diagnostic agents. PNI’s easy-to-use proprietary microfluidic-based NanoAssemblr™ platform enables the rapid, reproducible, and scalable manufacture of nanoparticle drug delivery formulations. PNI’s proprietary lipid library facilitates Lipid Nanoparticle (LNP) delivery of RNA therapeutics and can be licensed for preclinical and clinical development. The Company’s custom formulation and process development services allows clients to leverage PNI’s extensive nanomedicine development expertise. Access to value-added partners such as CMOs and GMP manufacturers supports NanoAssemblr users to manufacture their candidates for clinical use. PNI’s technology is being used by biopharmaceutical companies worldwide to develop drugs not thought possible just a few years ago. See Precision NanoSystems' technology video here.

Precision NanoSystems Receives Contribution from the Government of Canada to Build RNA Medicine Biomanufacturing Centre

Last week it was announced Precision NanoSystems has received $25.1 million from the Government of Canada’s Strategic Innovation Fund to create the country’s first centre of manufacturing excellence of nanomedicine-based RNA vaccines, gene therapies and cell therapies. The $50 million centre will support the Government of Canada’s national biomanufacturing strategy to expand production capacity of critical medicines for the prevention and treatment of diseases such as COVID-19. Once the biomanufacturing centre is completed, targeted for March 2023, PNI will have the capacity to produce up to 240 million doses of its self-amplifying ribonucleic acid (RNA) COVID–19 vaccine every year. In addition, the government recently invested $18.2 million in PNI to support the development of its promising COVID-19 self-amplifying RNA vaccine candidate through clinical trials.

“Our government is bringing back the vaccine manufacturing capacity that Canadians expect and need. These investments will help to ensure that Canada has modern, flexible vaccine manufacturing capabilities now and in the future. With the investments announced today, our government is helping Canadian companies advance made-in-Canada vaccines and therapies, while securing domestic manufacturing options for international vaccine candidates. This is all part of our government’s commitment to protect the health and safety of all Canadians today, and in the future”, said the Honourable François-Philippe Champagne, Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry. In addition to the Vancouver centre, the federal government is funding new vaccine facilities in Saskatchewan and Quebec.

“This facility will be utilized for the production of both therapeutics and vaccines applied to cancer, infectious disease, rare diseases … And then in times of pandemic needs, it will be utilized for pandemic response,” said CEO and Co-founder James Taylor. PNI currently boasts a headcount of 120 employees and Taylor said he plans to hire more than 50 additional employees by the end of the year. The centre will continue Canada’s leadership in the creation of innovative solutions for the development and production of new medicines for the benefit of patients in Canada and beyond. This support from the Government of Canada helps PNI to further achieve its mission of accelerating the creation of transformative medicines that significantly impact human well-being.