Princeton, New Jersey-based Soligenix, Inc. (Nasdaq: SNGX) has announced that it is applying to the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) for grant funding to advance a protein-based thermostable subunit vaccine targeting Bundibugyo virus (BDBV), as an active outbreak of the pathogen has been declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern by the World Health Organization.
No funding has been confirmed. CEPI issued a call for proposals with applications due June 12, 2026, and Soligenix has indicated its intent to submit. The company cautioned that there is no assurance CEPI will select its application or that any award will be sufficient to advance the program.
The application will be developed in collaboration with Axel Lehrer, Professor in the Department of Tropical Medicine, Medical Microbiology and Pharmacology at the John A. Burns School of Medicine, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. Lehrer's laboratory has previously produced glycoprotein from Bundibugyo virus using the same recombinant expression platform underpinning Soligenix's existing filovirus vaccine candidates, providing a technical foundation for rapid candidate development.
The application is grounded in preclinical data generated from Soligenix's broader filovirus vaccine program, which has produced bivalent and trivalent candidates incorporating antigens against Ebola virus, Sudan virus, and Marburg virus, formulated with the CoVaccine HT adjuvant. Those candidates have demonstrated up to 100% protection in non-human primates against lethal virus challenge and have shown thermostability for at least two years at temperatures of at least 40 degrees Celsius — a characteristic considered particularly relevant for deployment in virus-endemic regions of Africa and for strategic national stockpile applications.