About

Oragenics, Inc. is a development-stage company dedicated to fighting infectious diseases including coronaviruses and multidrug-resistant organisms. Our lead product is an intranasal vaccine candidate to provide long-lasting immunity from SARS-CoV-2 and its variants, which cause COVID-19. The NT-CoV-2 program leverages coronavirus spike protein research licensed from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) with a focus on reducing viral transmission and offering a more patient-friendly intranasal administration. Our lantibiotics program features a novel class of antibiotics against bacteria that have developed resistance to commercial antibiotics.

Mission

Our mission is focused on developing vaccines and novel antibiotics to prevent and treat today’s and tomorrow’s infections.

History

Members of our scientific team discovered that a certain bacterial strain, Streptococcus mutans, produces MU1140, a molecule belonging to the novel class of antibiotics known as lantibiotics. Lantibiotics, such as MU1140, are highly modified peptide antibiotics made by a small group of Gram-positive bacterial species. Over 60 lantibiotics have been discovered, to date. We believe lantibiotics are generally recognized by the scientific community to be potent antibiotic agents.

In May of 2020, we acquired Noachis Terra, Inc. and as a result, we are now focused on the development and commercialization of a vaccine product candidate to provide long lasting immunity from the novel Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus (“SARS-CoV-2”), which causes the coronavirus disease 2019. We are a party to a worldwide, nonexclusive intellectual property and biological materials license agreement with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, an institute within the National Institutes of Health (NIH), relating to certain research, patent applications and biological materials involving pre-fusion stabilized coronavirus spike proteins and their use in the development and commercialization of a vaccine to provide specific, long-lasting immunity from SARS-CoV-2.

In March of 2021, we entered into a material transfer agreement with Biodextris Inc. for the use of three intranasal mucosal adjuvants in our Terra CoV-2 vaccine against COVID-19. Adjuvants are added to vaccines to enhance their immunogenicity.

In July of 2021, we entered into a licensing agreement with the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) that will enable us to pursue the rapid development of next-generation vaccines against the SARS-CoV-2 virus and its variants. The National Research Council of Canada (NRC) technologies, in combination with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) elements found in our NT-CoV-2 candidate, provide us with a platform that can generate cell lines for high-yield production of spike protein antigens for existing and emerging variants of concern. This platform should allow production of cell lines within six to eight weeks of spike gene sequence availability, compared with six to nine months for traditional production of such cell lines. The National Research Council of Canada (NRC) technologies, developed with support from the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) Pandemic Response Challenge Program, are expected to expedite the evaluation of SARS-CoV-2 antigen candidates in preclinical and clinical studies.