Busy Day! Some great investors preempted the next round at Centivax: the Collison brothers, Structure Fund (Oliver Mulherin & Sam Altman) and Meiji Seika Pharma. "If our data looks good by the end of this year, effectively, the pandemic era for influenza is over" 💥 "Centivax is a 'universal immunity company,' developing universal snake venom, Alzheimer's, malaria and cancer vaccines. 'You want to treat all the flus, not just one strain,' Glanville says." — From today's news: axios.com/pro/biotech-deals/…

As @NFX is the biggest shareholder @centivax we totally agree :-) Smash the mutants! End viruses scourge forever

Very enthusiastic about what @centivax is doing. We still suffer from an outrageous number of infectious diseases. axios.com/pro/biotech-deals/…

Just finished a watershed board meeting at Centivax. CEO Jake Glanville is holding the first vial of universal vaccine, now in clinical trials. In the long arc of human history, pathogens have killed >50% of humans that ever lived — over 50 Billion dead. Nothing else comes close. This huge painting by Andrew Turner adorns the entryway. We have better tools than ever before to eradicate pathogens. We are hopeful that Centivax's universal vaccine programs will end the scourge of malaria, herpesviruses, coronaviruses, influenza and more.

What a moment for @centivax. The first humans have been dosed in their Phase 1a trial of a universal flu vaccine -- designed to protect against all flu strains, past, present, and future. We are so proud to back this team.

Centivax is now in the clinic! Jake and the entire team gave absolutely herculean effort to make this timeline a reality. The first participants have now been dosed with Centi-Flu 01, one of the best shots humanity has at a universal flu vaccine. One consequence of spending a lot of time with this business is that any cold or virus I get makes me angrier. We shouldn't continue to accept the damage that pathogens inflict on our bodies, brains, and societies. We at @AmplifyPartners are proud to support Centivax in their mission. More exciting news for this business in the coming weeks, stay tuned!

If we can avoid infection by herpesvirus and flu, will we avoid Alzheimer's and Parkinson's? Neuroprotection is a huge downstream benefit of Centivax’s universal vaccine programs — one shot to end them all. Oh, and end pandemics while we're at it, all of them. So many sequelae:

Big milestone: Centivax has closed a $45M oversubscribed Series A! Led by Steve Jurvetson @FutureVenture with NFX, BOLD, Amplify, Base4, Kendall, and others. Dr. Emilio Emini (ex-Pfizer, Merck, Gates MRI) joins our Board. Universal vaccines are coming. prnewswire.com/news-releases…

What if flu vaccines really worked? And I mean *really* worked—to the point that humanity's endemic relationship with influenza became history, not an ongoing global health challenge. What if we could mitigate *all* rapidly mutating pathogens? This is why Jake Glanville founded Centivax. His life mission is to "finish what Edward Jenner started" by developing universal vaccines that accelerate humanity's transition to a post-pathogen future. Jake is exactly the type of Technical Founder we look to partner with at Amplify. He was an early pioneer of computational antibody design at Pfizer, before becoming one of the first graduate students in Computional & Systems Biology at Stanford with Mark Davis. He's synthesized a lifetime of work into a distinct—and somewhat contrarian—idea for developing universal vaccines. And the team he's assembled is equally extraordinary. For example, Centivax's CMO, Jerry Sadoff, is one of the most prolific vaccine developers alive. It's truly a privilege for us to participate in the Series A syndicate for Centivax. Over the last decade, Jake and the team have assembled a comprehensive pre-clinical data package for their lead flu program. The only remaining experiment is to see if this translates to humans, which is what this round underwrites. If this technology is successful, the impact will be enormous. And the story of this team's perseverance will require it's own book in the biotech canon.

Smash the mutants 🦠 to end the pandemic era for humanity — with a single shot for all flu and then coronaviruses, HIV, herpes, malaria, cancer and more! These scourges have evaded effective vaccines because they continuously mutate their outer epitopes to evade our immune system. Centivax is the first to show a universal vaccine working in multiple animals and human organoids. With this Series A funding, led by Future Ventures, they will take it to humans. “Universal vaccines won’t just be safer, more reliable and more convenient medicine - their commercialization will end the pandemic era” — Jacob Glanville, PhD, co-founder and CEO of Centivax (in 2nd photo I took at SynBioBeta) “I have been on a quest to find a credible antiviral breakthrough for over 20 years. I first became enamored with the prospect of a universal vaccine via our philanthropy. Centivax has already demonstrated their universal immunity platform in antivenom. Their unique approach will hopefully lead to a historic transition to a post-pandemic era for humanity” — me The growing portfolio underscores the technology’s broad potential against rapidly mutating threats, including viruses, bacteria, protozoan, fungal and parasitic pathogens, but also extending to broad healthspan indications spanning oncology, autoimmunity, cardiovascular disease and neurodegeneration. We also welcome to the board Dr. Emilio Emini, former SVP of Vaccine R&D at Pfizer and Merck and CEO of the Gates Medical Research Institute where he ran their HIV and TB programs. “Centivax designed a vaccine that contains a whopping 22 different mRNA molecules encoding proteins from flu strains spanning the past century. The South San Francisco-based company claims animal studies show that the immune system can spot the commonalities between the strains and focus its attack on the tidbits of the virus that are unlikely to change from season to season. ‘They always have this Achilles’ heel, a little spot that they can’t mutate. Otherwise, they’re no longer infectious,’ Centivax founder and CEO Jacob Glanville told Endpoints. ‘A universal vaccine, once it’s approved, is just going to be called ‘the vaccine’ because why would people take anything else? ‘FDA Commissioner Marty Makary has predicted that a universal flu vaccine could be available within five years, a timeline that aligns with Centivax’s plans. ‘Every year we have a global outbreak, which is nuts,’ Glanville said. ‘If we do our jobs well, then the pandemic era is over.’” — Today’s news (free with registration): endpoints.news/startup-raise… Company site: Centivax.com

Dean Kamen demonstrates his low-cost self-administered vaccine delivery invention. No skills needed. No scary needle. Localized delivery to dendritic cells in the skin (to better promote an immune response). Universal vaccines (a single lifetime shot for all flu, HIV, malaria, or coronaviruses) from Centivax, Baker Lab at UW, and others will want better delivery methods for billions of people. At SynBioBeta today.

Reminds me of this story x.com/i/grok/share/1sd4cj9Kn…

Taking one for the team 🐍 Centivax has developed a universal antidote for snake bites, and next, one shot for all forms of flu. Their unique approach will hopefully lead to the post-pandemic era for humanity, with a single shot for all coronaviruses, herpes, HIV, malaria, etc.

Could this vaccine approach help overcome our current real-life game of variant ‘whack-a-mole’?💡 CEPI is providing up to $5m to @Centivax to advance their tech aiming to create a single-shot vaccine to protect against multiple viruses and their variants: cepi.net/pioneering-vaccine-…