Frontier IP vaccine portfolio company wins £500,000 grant for cattle jab

Frontier IP has reported that one of its portfolio companies, The Vaccine Group, has won a further £500,000 grant to advance its work on a cattle vaccine.

Frontier IP, which commercialises university intellectual property and takes equity stakes in the spin-outs it helps create, holds 16.95% of The Vaccine Group (TVG), a spin-out from the University of Plymouth.

The grant, awarded with the government’s Animal and Plant Health Agency through Defra’s Farming Innovation Programme and Innovate UK, will fund a study into TVG’s vaccine against bovine respiratory syncytial virus. The virus os a highly contagious cattle disease and a leading cause of bovine respiratory illness.

The Pirbright Institute estimates the disease costs British farmers around £54m a year and as much as £5.6bn globally.

TVG also reported strong results for a pig vaccine targeting Streptococcus suis, a bacterial infection that can also sicken humans, which the company says demonstrates its herpesvirus-based technology works against both viral and bacterial diseases and across different species.

Frontier IP has seen another company achieve a level of validation that other London-listed technology incubators have failed to secure.

Frontier IP shares were little changed at the time of writing.