i-Seq Biotechnology was formed in late-2024 to advance novel, broad-spectrum, vaccines and therapeutics against infectious disease pathogens impacting human health globally. Based on technology exclusively licensed from Lausanne University in Switzerland, our lead product incorporates a highly conserved, intracellular, membrane bound antigen (lafB) identified using the CRISPRi-seq platform and demonstrated to provide protection against a diverse array of Streptococcus pneumoniae strains even in the face of viral co-infection.

The Problem: There are few vaccines currently licensed to prevent human infections safely and effectively, and those that are available only provide protection against  a subset of strains that can cause disease. Additionally, the rise in antimicrobial resistance has severely impacted our ability to treat infections. Case in point: Pneumococcal infections are a major cause of morbidity and mortality globally with over 1.6 million resulting deaths. Current vaccines target the sugar capsule surrounding the bacteria which vary substantially among the more than 100 serotypes of Pneumococci circulating in humans. Due to this complexity, currently approved vaccines only target a subset of pneumococcal strains, leaving the human populace woefully unprotected.

The Solution: i-Seq Biotechnology uses an innovative CRISPRi-seq-based approach to probe the microbial genome for virulence factors in vivo. A library of conditional knockout strains for every protein coding gene is injected into an appropriate model, and the survival of each of these knockouts is compared to a non-modified library. In a subsequent step, the identified protein virulence factors are produced heterologously and tested for their immunogenic potential. This approach has distinct advantages over currently employed strategies to identify microbial virulence factors, such as transposon sequencing, high-throughput insertion tracking by deep sequencing and insertion sequencing.

Market Opportunity: The global pneumococcal vaccine market alone was valued at $8.6 billion in 2021 and is expected to reach $12 billion by 2030 with a CAGR of 5.3%. The sales potential for an improved approach is substantial in both developed and developing nations. An example for the latter is the Global Vaccines Alliance commitment to provide pneumococcal vaccines to lower-income countries through 2029 with support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the World Bank and several countries totaling $1.5 billion in support.