Following a Federal Laboratory Consortium (FLC) award win in April, Lawrence Livermore National Lab (LLNL) has received its second national recognition for collaborations surrounding the biomedical technology called nanolipoprotein particles (NLPs).
Yash Vaishnav, a business development executive within the Innovation and Partnerships Office (IPO), was recognized by the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Technology Transfer Working Group (TTWG) at its Spring Meeting, May 14-15, in Washington, D.C., for his work in negotiating the licensing agreement for LLNL’s NLP technology to EVOQ Therapeutics (EVOQ) – winning TTWG’s “Best in Class” award for licensing.
At LLNL, Vaishnav has negotiated about 35 license agreements. Overall, he’s negotiated about 150 license agreements in his 24-year career in business development and technology transfer spanning three universities and two national labs.
Vaishnav won TTWG’s award for an agreement that was executed in 2017 when LLNL licensed the NLP technology to EVOQ for a narrow field of use (FOU) in personalized cancer vaccine development. Through collaborative discussions with IPO, EVOQ later shifted its focus to developing vaccines for autoimmune diseases. At the time, this was an entirely new, but promising, application of vaccines. In June 2020, LLNL amended the EVOQ license agreement to change the FOU to peptide-based vaccines targeting autoimmune diseases, replacing the FOU for cancer vaccines originally granted.
As a result of this licensing pivot, EVOQ has developed a technology for autoimmune diseases vaccines shown to be 30 times more effective at delivering antigens to the lymph nodes compared to antigens alone, resulting in a superior immune system response.
“This is one of the first biomedical technologies in the area of vaccines and therapeutics from the DOE complex to enter preclinical trials,” said Vaishnav. “While there are drugs available for the treatment of autoimmune diseases, there are currently no vaccines approved by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration for the prevention or treatment of autoimmune diseases.”
Starting in 2021, EVOQ established license agreements and gained significant funding for collaborative research and development activities with Gilead Sciences, Inc., and Amgen, Inc., to continue testing and preclinical development of new vaccines for multiple autoimmune diseases.
Through Vaishnav’s negotiation, LLNL’s IPO met its goal of promoting licensing and partnerships with private industry to ensure the development of therapeutics beneficial to the public and to the U.S. economy.
The TTWG was established by the DOE to improve technology transfer activities for national laboratories, single-purpose research facilities, production facilities and DOE/National Nuclear Security Administration field elements, according to its website. Members are technology transfer professionals from across these organizations who work together to implement DOE technology transfer policy in a “mutually-beneficial environment that encourages open communication, teamwork and professional development.”
-Melissa Lewelling