Acuitas Therapeutics Highlights Advances in LNP Delivery Systems for Next-Generation mRNA Vaccines at the World Vaccine Congress, Europe
Vancouver, B.C. – Acuitas Therapeutics, the global leader in lipid nanoparticle (LNP) delivery systems for nucleic acid therapeutics, presented new data at the World Vaccine Congress this past week demonstrating that its next-generation LNP formulations drive more potent immunity and show more durable protection than other formulations. Data presented showed that next-generation formulations supported cancer vaccines and multivalent vaccine designs against infectious diseases. The 2026 World Vaccine Congress, Europe was hosted October 19-21 in Amsterdam.
“Acuitas’ LNP technology demonstrates a strong safety profile while driving more potent and durable immune responses than other lipid-based delivery technology in advanced clinical development,” said Ying Tam, Chief Scientific Officer. “These are the qualities vaccine developers are looking for to help advance next-generation mRNA vaccines against cancer and infectious diseases where multivalent formulations would enable targeting multiple pathogens or variants simultaneously.
Acuitas’ ALC-315® Enables Potent Immune Response to mRNA Cancer Vaccines
Research presented showed that Acuitas’ ALC-315® lipid formulation drove a stronger immune response at lower doses compared to other LNP currently being evaluated in the clinic, inhibiting tumour growth and improving survival in animals with an established tumours.
Key highlights include:
- An ALC-315®-formulated mRNA vaccine induced >40% antigen-specific CD8+ T cell responses across 0.2 μg and 10 μg doses.
- When compared to LPX and SM-102, two non-viral lipid-based delivery platforms currently being evaluated in the clinic, at 4-20x lower dose, ALC-315® induced an equivalent or stronger CD8+ T cell and humoral response.
- An ALC-315®-based mRNA LNP cancer vaccine induced potent and broad CD8+ T cell response against mouse melanoma and colon cancer Tumour Associated Antigens (TAA) & neoantigens models. ALC-315® based mRNA-LNP vaccination inhibited tumor growth and enhanced survival.
- In addition, we identified a novel lipid that induced a significantly enhanced CD8+ T cell response than ALC-315® against MC38 neoantigens.
Next-Generation Lipids Drive More Durable Immune Responses and Support Multivalent Vaccines for Infectious Disease
Acuitas identified next-generation lipids with a five to seventeen-fold increase in potency compared to ALC-315® and drove superior humoral and cellular responses in an influenza vaccine model. Acuitas’ next-generation lipids were well-tolerated and outperformed adjuvanted protein vaccine for both humoral and cellular immune response.
Key highlights include:
- Multivalent vaccine studies showed that Acuitas’ next-generation lipids produced comparable antibody titres to ALC-315® at a five-fold lower dose.
- Acuitas’ next-generation lipids produced higher neutralizing antibody titers and a larger antigen-specific memory B-cell pool than ALC-315® that persisted for over 10 months and produced a robust recall response.
- Mechanistic studies suggest that the superior potency of next-generation LNP is associated with enhanced antigen expression and better innate immune response compared with ALC-315®.
- In vivo studies showed that next generation lipids were well-tolerated with mild transient local and systemic reactogenicity, equivalent to ALC-315®.
“We have presented some exciting data at the World Vaccine Congress this week that show Acuitas’ lipids are a powerful platform for efficient vaccines,” said Ghania Chikh, Senior Director, Vaccine Development. “We demonstrated induction of a robust CD8+ T cell response against tumor associated and neoantigens, targets which are clinically relevant. We have also shown that an Acuitas next-generation LNP-based mRNA vaccine can produce significantly stronger humoral and cellular immune responses compared to adjuvanted recombinant protein and that the new lipids can support multivalent vaccines at a much lower dose than ALC-315®. These new developments show that Acuitas’ next-generation LNP can address important challenges for both cancer and infectious disease vaccines.”
The oral presentation and posters presented at the 2026 World Vaccine Congress, Europe can be found here.
About Acuitas Therapeutics
Acuitas Therapeutics Inc., the global leader in lipid nanoparticle (LNP) delivery systems for nucleic acid therapeutics, is a Vancouver-based company collaborating with pharmaceutical and biotech companies, academic researchers, and global health organizations to advance a broad range of medicines for a variety of diseases.
Acuitas’ clinically validated LNP technology has had a profound global impact — most notably enabling the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, COMIRNATY®, which has protected billions of people in more than 180 countries. Its technology also enables ONPATTRO® by Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, the first FDA-approved RNAi therapeutic for treating the rare and fatal disease transthyretin amyloidosis. More recently, Acuitas’ LNP technology has delivered other groundbreaking firsts: the first in-human proof of concept for genome base editing and the first personalized CRISPR therapy.
Today, Acuitas is advancing next-generation LNP to support a variety of therapeutic modalities. This includes targeted LNP for extrahepatic therapies such as in vivo CAR T-cells, gene editing therapies across multiple DNA editing technologies, epigenetic medicines to modulate gene expression without altering DNA, and multivalent vaccines for infectious diseases — such as malaria, HIV/AIDS, and tuberculosis — as well as oncology vaccines, including personalized cancer vaccines.
For more information, visit www.acuitastx.com.
Media Contact:
Jakub Cikowski