Dynavax Gets Funding From Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation To Support Development Of COVID-19 Vaccine

(RTTNews) - Dynavax Technologies Corp. (DVAX) said Thursday that it has received a $3.4 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to scale up production batch size to allow for increased capacity of the company's CpG 1018 advanced adjuvant to support the global COVID-19 response. The efforts will support capacity of up to 750 million adjuvant doses annually, which can be further increased if needed.

Ryan Spencer, Chief Executive Officer of Dynavax, said that the company believes adjuvants will play an important role in developing effective vaccines for COVID-19, including for those patients at greatest risk for severe disease.

The ability of CpG 1018 to potentially provide an improved immune response and also reduce the amount of vaccine antigen necessary will help provide more vaccine doses to meet the global need, the company said.