Technology

There is a real and strong unmet need for safe and effective vaccines against Apicomplexa parasites.  Fully aware of that, VitamFero’s first mission is to set up and develop vaccines to prevent ovine and feline toxoplasmosis and bovine neosporosis and cryptosporidiosis.

To meet this objective, VitamFero holds an innovative and proprietary technology developed and patented conjointly by INRA, François-Rabelais University of Tours and CNRS.  This patented technology is based on a live and attenuated Toxoplasma gondii strain, the parasite responsible for toxoplasmosis.  This strain, called "Toxo KO", was obtained by dual deletions (hence Knock-Out or KO) of mic1 and mic3 genes through a homologous recombination procedure.  Despite the lack of MIC1 and MIC3 protein expression, the "Toxo KO" strain remains fully viable and, most of all, it is non-pathogenic while keeping its strong immunogenic potentialities.  Moreover, having totally lost mic1 and mic3 gene sequences, "Toxo KO" cannot, in any circumstance, revert to virulence.  This feature is of key importance with respect to safety issue.

"Toxo KO" vaccine and the related innovative technology hold key competitive assets measured in terms of:

• Safety:  "Toxo KO" vaccine represents a new generation of live and attenuated vaccines obtained through the deletion of 2 genes of virulence.  Therefore, the risk of reversion to virulence is totally eliminated.  That is not the case of current live and attenuated veterinary vaccines resulting from mostly unknown, random and punctual mutations of the genome.
• Effectiveness:  "Toxo KO" vaccine belongs to the group of live and attenuated vaccines, the most effective vaccine class because it triggers an immune response very close to the one observed in natural and opportunistic infections.  Clearly, it is not the case of inert vaccines made of killed microorganisms or of antigen cocktails.