IAVI opens new Vaccine Design and Development Laboratory space in Jersey City, NJ

IAVI’s Vaccine Design and Development Laboratory (DDL) has officially relocated to a custom new lab space in Jersey City, New Jersey. After nearly 20 years of research and innovation at the historic Brooklyn Army Terminal, the DDL is gratified to become a member of New Jersey’s growing biotechnology community at 95 Greene Street.

The DDL has expanded substantially since its inception to become one of the world’s leading vaccine research and development (R&D) labs. It was founded to focus on HIV vaccines and now operates as the preclinical development hub for IAVI’s emerging infectious disease (EID) vaccine portfolio — including priority pathogens such as Lassa virus, Sudan virus, and Marburg virus. 

Together with a global network of collaborators and informed by affected communities, the DDL team of researchers designs novel vaccine candidates for these priority pathogens. They specialize in working with the recombinant vesicular stomatitis virus (rVSV) vaccine delivery vector, which serves as the platform for IAVI’s current EID vaccine candidates. The same rVSV technology is used in ERVEBO®, Merck’s single-dose Zaire ebolavirus vaccine that is licensed in more than a dozen countries. IAVI hopes that vaccine candidates built on rVSV will be used in future EID outbreak responses.

IAVI leaders shared remarks on these topics and looked ahead to the continued evolution of the DDL at a Feb. 7 lab opening reception. Guests from the local biotechnology community and the New Jersey Economic Development Authority joined IAVI to mark the occasion with tours of the new lab space, networking, and a ribbon-cutting ceremony.

Mark Feinberg, M.D., Ph.D., IAVI president and CEO, kicked off the reception by welcoming guests to the DDL. “Innovation in vaccine development and global health can’t happen in a vacuum but only as the result of effective partnership among nonprofits, industry, governments, academia, and many other communities and stakeholders,” he noted.

Swati Gupta, DrPH, MPH, vice president and head of emerging infectious diseases and epidemiology at IAVI, then contextualized the DDL’s work within broader outbreak response and pandemic preparedness efforts — for example, the current Sudan virus ring vaccination trial in Uganda using IAVI’s investigational vaccine candidate rVSV∆G-SEBOV-GP. “Milestones like these start in labs like this one,” she said. “The DDL is the engine for IAVI’s EID program, and I’ll add that it’s also a center of excellence for the development of the rVSV vector.”

Gupta then introduced Christopher L. Parks, Ph.D., associate vice president of viral vaccines and head of the IAVI DDL. Parks acknowledged the tremendous efforts of DDL staff members toward shaping the new lab space and expressed his enthusiasm for joining New Jersey’s life sciences ecosystem. “Going forward, we aim to improve rVSV technology and broaden its potential use for other vaccine targets, expand our capabilities for immunological analysis and development of manufacturing technologies, investigate new preclinical models, and provide a wider range of support to advance IAVI’s diverse vaccine candidates,” he stated.

Remarks concluded with John Coelho, senior advisor, Life Sciences Strategic Innovation Centers at the New Jersey Economic Development Authority. He welcomed IAVI to the state and discussed potential opportunities for future collaboration.

About 95 Greene Street

95 Greene Street is a lab-ready, 350,000-square-foot building located in one of the New York City metro area’s key business hubs. This building aims to enable R&D innovation and features state-of-the-art infrastructure that is essential to life sciences, health care, and technology organizations. It is owned and managed by Thor Equities.