Tokyo-based biotech company VLP Therapeutics Japan, LLC (VLPT Japan) announced on October 3 that it has been selected as among awardees of a government grant from the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) to help introduce or renovate biopharmaceutical manufacturing facilities needed for vaccine production.

With this grant and the company’s expertise in new vaccine modalities acquired from its pre-clinical and clinical studies, VLPT Japan plans to establish a facility to manufacture investigational vaccines in Kurume Research Park in Fukuoka. This facility is expected to: 1) enable VLPT Japan to carry out the in-house process development and investigational vaccine manufacturing in Japan; 2) facilitate the transition of the company and other biotechs’ pipeline from pre-clinical to clinical phases to commercial manufacturing; and 3) allow VLPT Japan to swiftly shift to a clinical phase in cooperation with the Japanese government in the event of pandemic emergency.

“From my perspective, Japan lacks the process development capabilities to move a wide array of vaccine candidates to a clinical trial phase fast and the domestic manufacturing capacity for high-mix, low-volume production, which I think is one of the reasons that the country is lagging behind in the biopharmaceutical industry as well as the delay in the domestic development of COVID-19 vaccines,” says VLPT Japan founder and CEO Wataru Akahata. “With this in mind, we will make preparations accordingly eyeing a 2024 start of plant operation in collaboration with Fukuoka Prefecture, Kurume City, and Kurume Research Park Co., Ltd. We fully intend to help grow seeds of vaccine R&D across Japan, while also aiding their global expansion.”

  • Scope of activities at this facility: process development and cGMP manufacturing of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) of the company’s investigational vaccines for infectious diseases and cancer, and those of other biotechs’ pipeline.
  • Scope of vaccine modalities: Virus-like particles (VLPs), self-amplifying RNA (saRNA), messenger RNA (mRNA), virus vector, etc.
  • Location: Kurume Research Park, 1-1 Hyakunen Koen, Kurume, Fukuoka 839-0864.
  • Start of plant operation: in 2024 (subject to change)

# # #

About VLP Therapeutics Japan: VLP Therapeutics Japan, LLC (VLPT Japan), founded in 2020 by Dr. Wataru Akahata, is a wholly-owned subsidiary of US-based VLP Therapeutics, Inc. Currently VLPT Japan has operations at its Tokyo Office, Osaka Office, and Kyoto Lab for research and development of novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccine using self-amplifying “replicon” mRNA technology proprietary to VLPT, with support from the Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development (AMED), the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (MHLW), and the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI).

About VLP Therapeutics: VLP Therapeutics, Inc. (VLPT), co-founded in 2013 by Drs. Wataru Akahata, Ryuji Ueno, and Sachiko Kuno, is a Gaithersburg, MD-based biotech company with a mission to address unmet medical needs worldwide and expand the frontiers of vaccine treatment. Led by CEO Akahata VLPT is currently engaged in research and development of a cancer treatment vaccine as well as prophylactic vaccines against malaria, dengue, etc. using VLPT’s proprietary platform technologies.

About Dr. Wataru Akahata: Upon graduation from the University of Tokyo in 1997, Akahata studied at Kyoto University’s Graduate School of Human and Environmental Studies. In 2002 he earned a PhD for his HIV vaccine studies under supervision of professor Hayami Masanori at the Kyoto University Institute for Virus Research. He then started his career at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Vaccine Research Center in the US through 2012. During that time he invented a virus-like particle (VLP) vaccine for chikungunya virus in 2009, on which he published an original article in Nature Medicine with the VLP image featured on the cover in 2010. He eventually won a NIH Director’s Award for his discovery of the vaccine and three other alphavirus vaccines in 2012. In addition to his role as the co-founder and CEO of VLP Therapeutics, Inc. in the US and CEO and chief R&D officer of VLP Therapeutics Japan, LLC, Akahata serves as a visiting professor at the Tokyo Institute of Technology and specially appointed associate professor at the Kyoto University Graduate School of Medicine in Japan, while also associated with Phoenixi Co Ltd as Special Fellow.

Contact: Yutaka Iijima, Director of Global Communications and IR

[Download PDF]

Related links and media coverage: