Adelaide biotech company Sementis is aiming to raise $10m to accelerate work on its next-generation Covid-19 vaccine, which it hopes to have in production within 18 months. 

The company is aiming to raise the money from existing shareholders, which include South Australian building industry figure Michael Hickinbotham. 

The vaccine candidate, which is being developed by the University of South Australia and Sementis, received a $2.9m grant from the federal government’s Medical Research Future Fund in May to fast-track its work, and the new money will also go towards research and development work on the vaccine, as well as work on how it can be manufactured at scale. 

Chairman Martyn Evans said it appeared there would be a need for vaccines for years to come as the virus mutated. 

The Sementis vaccine candidate has the benefit of working on a number of sites on the coronavirus and could therefore have broader application than some other vaccines, he said. 

The money would help the company move towards the development of a stable product, Mr Evans said. 

“Obviously vaccines are very complex molecules to deal with and you need to put quite a lot of effort and funding into ensuring the candidate vaccine is stable and is the most effective you can 

make it, and we’ll also look at how you can get a successful manufacturing process in place,’’ he said. 

Mr Evans said 18 months was a “reasonable time frame” to bring the vaccine candidate into production, “but obviously that depends on how progress goes because these are very complex things’’. 

“If the process works as we would hope it might, then certainly an 18 month time frame would be the relevant one.’’ 

UniSA immunologist Professor John Hayball, who is also Sementis’s chief scientific officer, was the recipient of the federal grant, and is leading the team developing the vaccine. 

The vaccine is based on the Sementis Copenhagen Vector platform, which Prof Hayball said in May was “the most advanced viral-vector vaccine platform technology to be developed in Australia”. 

“Crucially, our Sementis vaccine is anticipated to be effective against mutant strains of COVID-19,” he said. 

“It will be a stand-alone addition to the suite of locally available vaccines, as well as a potent booster to all approved vaccines, protecting the health of all Australians.’’ 

Mr Evans said while there were obviously vaccines on the market already, there would be a long-term need for new products. 

“The way it’s mutating into all of these strains it’s quite clear we will need ongoing vaccine responses for some years yet,’’ he said. 

“Despite the fact there are a number of vaccines on the market as we speak, we believe our product will be quite unique in that it will actually target a number of different areas on the Covid-19 virus, so we’re not just hoping to target the spike protein but we’re also looking to target other parts of the virus as well. 

“Therefore the opportunity to mutate away from aspects of our vaccine is much more limited because we target three different components on the virus.’’