2024 represented a year of intensive effort for our Plymouth-based laboratory team at TVG. We made strong progress on establishing candidate vaccine stocks for 11 projects intended for use in target animal studies in 2025. Some of this work will be supported by the new grants that TVG began during 2024. It was a very successful year for TVG in securing external funding through peer-reviewed grants awarded either to TVG directly: two Innovate UK grants for Streptococcus Suis, Bovine Respiratory Syncytial Virus and Lumpy Skin Disease, and a Bactivac grant on Streptococcus suis; or to collaborators at The Pirbright Institute on African Swine Fever or The Roslin Institute on bovine Tuberculosis. A major new initiative for us in 2024 was to develop an enhanced version of our core viral vector technology to address the possibility of biotherapeutic delivery in vivo. Significant progress towards construction of the new vector was made in the laboratory and an initial patent was filed in the UK to protect the innovative technology. Towards the end of the year a significant enhancement of protein expression was demonstrated using an alternative complimentary approach.
TVG continued to interact with commercial animal health companies throughout 2024. A financial contribution that allowed us to study serological responses to two of our candidate swine vaccines (Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome virus and Porcine Circovirus 2) was made available by one of our long-term commercial partners. Also in 2024 a new commercial relationship was established with a major animal health company to develop a poultry vaccine, broadening the range of animal species being addressed by our platform. Before the year end, progress reporting meetings were held with six of the major animal health companies, with three more companies met already in 2025. These meetings have stimulated further interest in collaborations which we hope will bear fruit later in the year.
Much of our focus in 2025 will be to deliver the funded target animal efficacy and safety data through our partners. This will include clinical studies in cattle for Bovine Respiratory Syncytial Virus and Lumpy Skin Disease, in poultry for Gumboro Disease and in pigs for African Swine Fever and Streptococcus suis. Several of these challenge studies are funded through our public grants, two of which extend throughout the coming year. We will continue to present TVG’s progress at industry meetings, and to publish results through peer-reviewed routes as appropriate. Biotherapeutic delivery will again be a focus for us as the year progresses, which we hope to progress with commercial partnerships and research collaborations.