Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine delivers mRNA into human cells to produce spike proteins. The mRNA is encapsulated by something called "LNP(lipid nanoparticles)". Without LNP technology, mRNA vaccine is impossible.
Now, check the following article by the Globe and Mail:
Canadian company behind key COVID-19 vaccine tech inks big development deal with Pfizer
Acuitas Therapeutics Inc. has quietly become one of Canada’s most lucrative biopharma companies by providing a critical piece of technology used to deliver the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine inside the body. Now, the Vancouver company has inked a deal with Pfizer Inc. to expand its efforts to help deliver a range of other treatments.
The U.S. drug giant on Monday announced an option deal to use Acuitas’s lipid nanoparticle (LNP) technology to develop up to 10 vaccines and therapies, after LNP proved to be a critical part of the development of its COVID-19 vaccine with BioNTech SE. Terms were not disclosed. The collaboration was one of a set of partnership deals unveiled by Pfizer to expand its use of messenger RNA (mRNA) technology.
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It’s the first direct engagement between Pfizer and Acuitas, which had worked with BioNTech before the German company joined with Pfizer to produce their mRNA vaccine. And it points to more opportunities for Acuitas, which has grown by about 75 per cent annually in recent years and whose revenues exceed US$100-million, with most of that falling to the bottom line.
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Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine uses LNP technology of Acuitas Therapeutics. This means that every Pfizer shot will give money to Acuitas. Acuitas has grown explosively, with revenues exceeding 100-million USD. Most of the revenues will become profit, because Acuitas is not manufacturing vaccines but collecting license fees.
This company has an interesting history too.
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Dr. Madden emigrated to Canada from Britain four decades ago to do postdoctoral biochemistry work with University of British Columbia professor Pieter Cullis (now chairman of Acuitas and a recent winner of the 2021 Prince Mahidol Award for Medicine). Dr. Madden co-founded a startup called Inex Pharmaceuticals. But he was downsized after the company merged with another in the late 2000s to become Tekmira.He and other former employees founded AlCana Technologies, the forerunner to Acuitas, in 2009. After a lawsuit between AlCana and Tekmira, his company secured the right to produce drug-delivery technology licensed from their ex-employer as part of a settlement.
Acuitas worked with Moderna, another future COVID-19 vaccine maker, through the 2010s until Tekmira, now Arbutus Biopharma Corp., ended Acuitas’s licence. After another lawsuit, the parties settled in 2018. Acuitas and Moderna parted ways, but Dr. Madden’s company had by then developed intellectual property to provide its own brand of LNP.
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It's a private company making huge amount of profit. I wonder who the shareholders are.
Official website of Acuitas Therapeutics is below:
