UB spinout POP Biotechnologies receives up to $9.7 million to advance bird flu vaccine

By the University at Buffalo

POP Biotechnologies Inc. (POP BIO), a University at Buffalo (UB) spinout developing vaccines and therapeutics, will receive up to $9.7 million from the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) to advance a vaccine candidate for H5N1 avian influenza and test its rapid-response vaccine platform.

The funding will support continued development and early clinical testing of the H5N1 candidate, commonly known as bird flu. The work also will help evaluate whether POP BIO’s SNAP nanoparticle vaccine platform can be adapted quickly for other epidemic and pandemic threats.

That broader goal includes preparing for a future Disease X – the term scientists use for an unknown pathogen that could emerge and cause a serious international outbreak.

The new award builds on an initial $1.5 million CEPI investment announced in 2025, which supported early proof-of-principle work with SNAP against a different viral disease.

POP BIO’s platform grew out of research led by Jonathan Lovell, Ph.D., SUNY Empire Innovation Professor in the department of biomedical engineering, a joint program of UB’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences.

After disclosing the groundbreaking technology to UB Business and Entrepreneur Partnerships’ (BEP) technology transfer office, the technology was licensed to and became the basis for POP BIO, a UB spinout that continues to grow with support of UB BEP’s startup resources.

“This is really taking research that began in a UB lab into clinical testing,” said Lovell, co-founder and CEO of POP BIO. “It’s hugely significant because POP BIO will be leading the effort to bring forward a new vaccine in the U.S. The funding allows us to move the SNAP platform into the manufacturing, preparation and phase 1 testing needed to show how it could work for H5N1 and for pandemic preparedness more broadly.”

Preparing a rapid-response vaccine platform

SNAP – short for spontaneous nanoliposome antigen particle – works like a flexible vaccine-building system. It is designed to attach vaccine proteins to tiny lipid particles, creating nanoparticle-based vaccine candidates more efficiently.

Vaccines often use antigens – pieces of a virus or other pathogen that teach the immune system what to recognize. POP BIO’s platform is designed to display those antigens in a form the immune system can recognize more readily.

Under the CEPI-funded project, POP BIO will use that approach to advance an H5N1 vaccine candidate. The work also gives the company a way to test the broader platform: If SNAP can be used to develop and manufacture an H5N1 candidate efficiently, it could help show how the same system might be adapted for other outbreak threats.

CEPI officials say the work is important because rapid vaccine development depends in part on preparing vaccine components with the right purity, consistency and speed – a priority tied to the “100 Days Mission,” an international target of making vaccines available within roughly 100 days after a new pandemic threat is identified. Shaving time off steps like purification is part of how that timeline becomes more realistic.

H5N1 has raised concern because it has spread widely in birds, infected mammals and caused isolated human cases.

“The H5N1 work gives us a concrete way to test SNAP as a rapid-response platform,” Lovell said. “We can advance a vaccine candidate for avian influenza while learning how the same system might be used when a new threat emerges.”