AstraZeneca on Thursday struck a deal with VaxEquity, a startup founded by Imperial College London's vaccinologist Robin Shattock, to develop and sell drugs based on its self-amplifying RNA technology platform in other disease areas.

The technology works in a similar way to the messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines made by Pfizer/BioNTech (PFE.N), (22UAy.DE) and Moderna (MRNA.O).

However, a self-amplifying RNA vaccine not only encodes the instructions for the host cell to make a coronavirus protein, but makes lots of copies of the RNA containing those instructions, meaning doses can be smaller and cheaper.

"It's a bit like having a manufacturing facility, and instead of having one copy of the recipe, you have multiple copies that you can hand round to multiple production lines within the cell to produce more protein," Imperial's Shattock told Reuters. "So that's why it has that opportunity to use lower doses."

"The reason we were slower was because we were coming from an academic setting," he said. "If we had this relationship (with AstraZeneca) at the beginning of 2020, we might have been faster."

 He could receive up to $195 million if certain milestones are met, in addition to royalties on approved drugs and equity investment from AstraZeneca and life sciences investor Morningside Ventures.

"This collaboration with VaxEquity adds a promising new platform to our drug discovery toolbox," said AstraZeneca research chief Mene Pangalos.

"We believe self-amplifying RNA, once optimised, will allow us to target novel pathways not amenable to traditional drug discovery across our therapy areas of interest," Pangalos added.

Image source: CNBC