Redmond-based vaccine maker Inventprise is gaining serious backing from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

On Wednesday, the biotech company announced an investment from the foundation of up to $90 million, contingent on manufacturing, clinical and preclinical milestones. The foundation is investing in IVT-25, a vaccine targeting pneumococcal bacterial infections. Pneumococcus can cause infections like pneumonia and meningitis.

"High rates of morbidity and mortality due to pneumococcal disease underscore the need for a wider-spectrum vaccine especially in lower- and middle-income countries and ultimately for all populations globally," Subhash Kapre, executive chairman of Inventprise, said in a news release. "We are pleased to receive funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to achieve this goal.”

The Gates Foundation is making the investment through its Strategic Investment Fund. The funds, according to Inventprise, will help take its vaccine through Phase 1 and Phase 2 clinical studies. The biotech added it expects IVT-25 to go to first-in-human trials in the second half of next year, and the company has pledged to make the vaccine affordable to low- and middle-income countries.

Inventprise was founded in 2012. In addition to pneumococcal bacterial infections, the biotech has vaccine candidates targeting human papilloma virus, group B streptococcus, meningococcus and the coronavirus that causes Covid-19.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation launched in 2000. The nonprofit provided more than $5.8 billion in grant support last year, according to the foundation, through more than 2,130 grants. Since 2000, the foundation has spent $53.8 billion.

“It is unacceptable that pneumonia remains the leading cause of death among children under the age of five,” Keith Klugman, director of the pneumonia program at the Gates Foundation, said in a news release. “The scientific community must strive to develop more effective vaccines to protect the most vulnerable children from more strains of this devastating disease."

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Source: The Business Journals