Saturday, July 5, 2025 7/5/2025

Large Scale Synthesis of the Next Generation Synthetic Saponin Adjuvant TiterQuil

Award Number: R44AI114030
ORGANIZATION: NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY & INFECTIOUS DISEASES
OPDIV: NIH
AWARD CLASS: DISCRETIONARY
AWARD ACTIVITY TYPE: SCIENTIFIC/HEALTH RESEARCH (INCLUDES SURVEYS)
PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE START DATE: 06/15/2014
PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE END DATE: 02/29/2020

Group Awards By:

View Award Description

Large Scale Synthesis of the Next Generation Synthetic Saponin Adjuvant TiterQuil - PROJECT SUMMARY Vaccines against infectious diseases continue to improve public health across the world. With increased knowledge of etiologic pathogens and necessary immune responses have come increasingly safe and defined or targeted vaccines. The success of defined vaccines requires use of an immunological adjuvant to permit more effective immunization. Few adjuvants have sufficient potency and acceptable toxicity for clinical use, restricting the potency of some vaccines and requiring higher or more doses of others. A leading adjuvant candidate is the natural product QS-21 which has been used in numerous clinical settings despite 3 major liabilities: dose limiting toxicity, poor stability, and limited availability of quality product. To address these liabilities, supported by RO1s at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC), we developed new synthetic strategies that permitted synthesis of QS-21 and purposefully engineered QS-21 analogs. Adjuvance Technologies Inc. is a privately held biopharmaceutical company formed to bring the potential of this synthetic saponin technology to clinical fruition. This technology has permitted systematic modification of the separate chemical domains of QS-21 for increased tolerability and immunological potency. Adjuvance has licensed and patented this technology and used it to design analogues with improved potency/toxicity ratios compared to QS-21 while decreasing the required number of synthetic steps. TiterQuil-1-0-5-5 (1055) was selected as optimal and the focus of our Phase I SBIR application from over 100 rationally designed Adjuvance molecules. In 1055 each of the 3 major QS-21 liabilities has been eliminated. Work accomplished under the Phase I SBIR demonstrated that our selected CMO, Albany Molecular Research Inc. (AMRI), was able to prepare 1055 in batches as large as 600 mgs and that these batches had the requisite purity and diminished toxicity demonstrated previously with smaller batches prepared in laboratories at MSKCC. Finally these batches of 1055 continued to surpass QS-21 in augmenting antibody titers against a variety of antigens in the absence of the toxicity seen with QS-21. The goals of this Phase II SBIR application are to perform the steps required for wider preclinical use and to generate the data necessary to complete an Investigational New Drug (IND) application to the U.S. FDA. If production of consistently pure, stable, safe and widely effective material at scale is successful in the work proposed here, Adjuvance plans to distribute 1055 widely to collaborators and under separate funding conduct a Phase I clinical trial with acellular pertussis vaccine plus 1055. We address here the concerns raised by potential commercial partners, as well as BARDA, DoD and the NIH: commercial scalability and cost, possible toxicity, and applicability to use with more widely used immunological carriers and antigens. These will all be addressed as we take the steps necessary to be able to conduct the initial Phase I clinical trial with 1055.


Issue Date FY	Funding FY	Legal Entity Name	Legal Entity Address	Legal Entity City	Legal Entity State	Legal Entity Zip Code	Legal Entity COUNTY	Legal Entity COUNTRY	Assistance Listing	Award Code	Budget Year	Action Date	Action Type	Action Amount

Issue Date FY: 2021 ( Subtotal = $0 )
2021	2018	ADJUVANCE TECHNOLOGIES INC.	1225 L ST STE 600	LINCOLN	NE	68508	LANCASTER	USA	Allergy and Infectious Diseases Research	000	3	10/19/2020	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	$0
														Subtotal = $0

Issue Date FY: 2018 ( Subtotal = $743,432 )
2018	2018	ADJUVANCE TECHNOLOGIES INC.	16 W 22ND ST, SIXTH FLOOR	NEW YORK	NY	10010	NEW YORK	USA	Allergy and Infectious Diseases Research	000	3	2/15/2018	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	$743,432
														Subtotal = $743,432

Issue Date FY: 2017 ( Subtotal = $756,567 )
2017	2017	ADJUVANCE TECHNOLOGIES INC.	16 W 22ND ST, SIXTH FLOOR	NEW YORK	NY	10010	NEW YORK	USA	Allergy and Infectious Diseases Research	000	2	2/24/2017	COMPETING CONTINUATION	$756,567
														Subtotal = $756,567

Grand Total All Awards = $1,499,999

Top

All Categories

About

Search

Reports

Data Submission

Award Information

Large Scale Synthesis of the Next Generation Synthetic Saponin Adjuvant TiterQuil

Award Number: R44AI114030

ORGANIZATION: NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY & INFECTIOUS DISEASES

OPDIV: NIH

AWARD CLASS: DISCRETIONARY

AWARD ACTIVITY TYPE: SCIENTIFIC/HEALTH RESEARCH (INCLUDES SURVEYS)

PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE START DATE: 06/15/2014

PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE END DATE: 02/29/2020

Federal Websites

Department of Health & Human Services

HHS Operating Divisions

HHS Staff Divisions

Download A Document Viewer