Q-VANT Biosciences launched recently as the first company to use a computational-driven approach to solve the supply chain problem of QS-21 and other quillaja-based saponin adjuvants for the global human and animal pharmaceutical markets. The company’s arrival on the scene comes as concern about the sustainability of the QS-21 supply chain is peaking due to the compound’s critical role in vaccine development, including vaccines for COVID-19.

Considered the “gold standard” adjuvant for enhancing immune response to vaccine antigens, QS-21 is a vital component of the Novavax Covid-19 vaccine, the recently approved malaria vaccine by the World Health Organization (WHO), and the GSK Shingrix® shingles vaccine, as well as in more than 17 other human vaccine candidates. Its unique adjuvant properties have made QS-21 an increasingly valuable adjuvant for the vaccine  industry, and the demand for it has increased accordingly — even before the start of the pandemic, the industry required approximately 20 million doses of QS-21 per year for the shingles vaccine, and 100 million per year (projected) for the malaria vaccine.

With Novavax and other potential vaccines dependent on QS-21 or other saponin-based adjuvants, the demand for doses of the COVID-19 vaccine and other pipeline vaccines is putting an immense strain on the available supply. Currently, the projected need for Novavax vaccine doses per year is somewhere between one to two billion. Layer this on top of the shingles and malaria vaccine demand and the supply chain issue with QS-21 comes into clear view.

The root of the supply chain issue lies within the source from which the QS-21 adjuvant is extracted – older quillaja trees native to Chile. QS-21 is traditionally extracted from the bark of mature trees (25 years old or older) – a harvesting process that negatively impacts the forest and the sustainability of the resource. The QS-21 is a purified fraction of the quillaja saponins found in the bark in small amounts. Given the current methods of sourcing and processing QS-21, the market cannot sustain the need with the current tree availability and traditional methods of extraction.

Q-VANT has solved this supply chain problem. With our proprietary technology platform, Q-SAP (Quillaja Sustainable Adjuvant Platform), Q-VANT is able to obtain adjuvant products from the total biomass—not just the bark–of the tree by combining computational learning techniques and a proprietary multi-step purification process. This dramatically increases supply by more than one thousand times, leading to billions of doses in a 100% sustainable way.

To learn more about QS-21 and the quillaja tree, check out our recent blog.