Mega fundraiser boosts SpyBiotech board
Chaffee has played a pivotal role in the inception of four publicly traded biotech companies and has successfully raised over $900 million in private and public capital. In his previous operating role as Chief Business Officer at Affinivax, Inc., Chaffee was instrumental in driving the company’s strategic growth, culminating in its acquisition by GSK for up to $3.3 billion.
His expertise in business development and advising innovative biotech ventures positions him to provide invaluable strategic guidance as SpyBiotech advances its clinical pipeline and expands its proprietary SpyTag/SpyCatcher™ and other related protein superglue technology.
SpyBiotech’s platform leverages the SpyTag/SpyCatcher system—a protein superglue that enables rapid, efficient, and stable antigen binding to vaccine delivery platforms. This technology offers a plug-and-play approach to vaccine development, minimising risks while enhancing immunogenicity.
The company recently completed vaccinations in its Phase I trial for SPYVLP01, a vaccine candidate targeting cytomegalovirus (CMV), underscoring the critical momentum towards addressing a pathogen that leads to chronic developmental health consequences.
SpyBiotech is a clinical-stage biotechnology company with novel vaccine platform technologies that can target infectious diseases, cancer, and chronic diseases. The company was spun out of the University of Oxford in 2017 backed by Oxford Science Enterprises and Google Ventures.
The platform is based on a proprietary protein “superglue” technology, which binds antigens to vaccine delivery platforms in a way that minimises delivery risk and enhances immunogenicity and efficacy. This makes it ideal for use against infectious diseases in challenging environments, such as in the developing world, but also with potential application in non-infectious disease settings such as cancer.
SpyBiotech has the exclusive rights from the University of Oxford to apply, commercialise and sub-license the SpyTag/SpyCatcher and related technology in vaccine development.