- Oversubscribed round was led by Future Ventures, and included NFX, BOLD Capital Partners, Kendall Capital Partners, Amplify Partners, Base4 Capital and others
- Dr. Emilio Emini, former SVP of Vaccine Research and Development at Pfizer, SVP of Research at Merck, and CEO of the Bill & Melinda Gates Medical Research Institute, joins the Board of Directors
SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., July 8, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — Centivax, Inc., a biotechnology company engineering vaccines and therapies for durable, universal protection against highly diverse targets, today announced the close of an oversubscribed $45 million Series A financing. The round was led by Steve Jurvetson of Future Ventures, an early backer of Tesla, SpaceX, Prellis Biologics, Cambrian Bio, and others which in aggregate represent $1.4 trillion of value creation. The round includes participation from NFX, BOLD Capital Partners, Base4 Capital, Kendall Capital Partners, Amplify Partners, and other investors. Existing insiders increased their ownership in the round.
"Future Ventures is proud to lead Centivax’s Series A with a great syndicate of co-investors," said lead investor Steve Jurvetson. "I have been on a quest to find a credible antiviral breakthrough for over 20 years. I first became enamored with the prospect of a universal vaccine via our philanthropy. Centivax has developed a universal shot for all forms of flu, and they have already demonstrated their universal immunity platforms in other areas, including universal antivenom. Their unique approach will hopefully lead to a historic transition to a post-pandemic era for humanity."
The Series A will fund Centivax’s first clinical candidate, a universal flu vaccine currently in CMC development, through a Phase I clinical trial slated to begin within eight months. In addition to safety, the study will measure correlate-of-protection efficacy using the gold-standard hemagglutination inhibition (HAI) assay against a panel of more than twenty flu strains—including current 2024-2025 circulating strains, historical mismatch strains, and pandemic strains—in a direct head-to-head comparison with existing standard-of-care flu vaccines. Because the HAI assay is the same correlate-of-protection used to license seasonal flu vaccines, positive data will provide a clear benchmark demonstrating the candidate’s ability to deliver broad protection with a single vaccine. "The Phase I trial gives us the opportunity to prove the Centivax platform technology works," said Dr. Jerald Sadoff, MD, Chief Medical Officer of Centivax. "We can demonstrate that the Centivax technology directs the immune system to focus on regions of pathogens that do not change across strains. This is valuable not just in flu, but for all rapidly mutating pathogens and other difficult targets in our portfolio." In preclinical studies in ferrets, pigs, cows, mice, rats, and human immune organoids, the Centivax technology consistently induced universal immunity to all tested influenza viruses, including the 2024-2025 H5N1 "bird flu."
Beyond its flagship universal-flu program, Centivax’s epitope-focusing platform enables a growing pipeline for RSV/hMPV, herpesviruses, HIV, malaria, oncology, and a universal antivenom that was recently published in Cell and spotlighted by the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Nature, and other outlets. This growing portfolio underscores the technology’s broad potential not only to protect against a wide array of infectious diseases–including viral, bacterial, protozoan, fungal, parasitic and man-made bioterror threats–but also to improve healthspan by reducing the long-term complications these pathogens can trigger, such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, cardiovascular and neurodegenerative disease. "Vaccines are already doing this. The Gardasil® vaccine, which our CMO played a key role in developing, reduced the national incidence of multiple cancer types, and was, in effect, an anti-cancer vaccine," said Dr. Jacob Glanville, PhD, co-founder and CEO of Centivax, "The Zostavax™ vaccine, which our CMO also spearheaded, has been recently demonstrated to reduce Alzheimer’s and heart disease. We believe that universal vaccines can take us further."
Centivax is led by CEO and founder Dr. Jacob Glanville, former founder and CEO of Distributed Bio, whose clients included Pfizer, Boehringer, Gilead, Teva, and 60 other biotechs and pharmaceutical companies and was acquired by Charles River Laboratories in 2020; Chief Medical Officer Dr. Jerald Sadoff, who previously led vaccine development at Johnson & Johnson, Merck, WRAIR, and AERAS, resulting in 14 vaccines receiving regulatory approval, including Gardasil®, Zostavax™, ProQuad®, Rotateq®, and the Janssen Jcovden COVID-19 vaccine; Chief Scientific Officer and co-founder Dr. Sawsan Youssef, who successfully exited Distributed Bio with Glanville in 2020, and whose work at Pfizer led to the clinical-stage drug sasanlimab; and co-founder and Chief Business Officer Stephanie Wisner, MBA, formerly of ARCH Venture Partners and author of Building Backwards to Biotech. The leadership team also includes Chief Innovation Officer Dr. Gusti Zeiner, Chief Operations Officer and co-founder David Tsao, and Chief Technology Officer and co-founder Dr. Nicholas Bayless.
"Universal vaccines won’t just be safer, more reliable, and more convenient medicine—their commercialization will end the pandemic era," said Glanville. "I am particularly excited to partner with Steve Jurvetson at Future Ventures due to his track record of new industry formation based on disruptive technology. This financing positions us to deliver on the U.S. government’s stated goal of a universal influenza vaccine within five years and to extend our platform to other high-impact diseases that needlessly weigh on our medical systems and our lives."
As part of the financing, Emilio Emini, PhD—former CEO of the Gates Medical Research Institute, Director of the Gates Foundation HIV and tuberculosis programs, and former SVP of Vaccine R&D at Pfizer and Merck—joins Centivax’s Board of Directors. Dr. Emini has been a major contributor to the development of multiple vaccines, including Prevnar, where he was responsible for its development for both pediatric and adult prevention of pneumococcal disease.
"I very much look forward to working with the Centivax team as a member of the company’s Board," said Dr. Emini, PhD. "Centivax’s approach to the design and development of a truly universal influenza vaccine is unique and creative. As such, the approach has considerable potential for successfully achieving a goal that has proven elusive to date."
In addition to venture backing, Centivax has secured $24 million to date in competitive, non-dilutive awards—beginning with a $2 million "Grand Challenge: End the Pandemic Threat" grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and followed by awards from CEPI, the National Institutes of Health, the Military Infectious Diseases Research Program, the U.S. Naval Medical Research Command, and others.
"In today’s financing climate, we are proud to have assembled an exceptional syndicate of investors and an exceptional team, both of which have an impressive track record of bringing breakthrough technologies to market," said co-founder and Chief Business Officer Stephanie Wisner. "This funding carries us through first-in-human studies—a value-inflection point that will catalyze the next phase of growth for Centivax and move the first universal flu vaccine one step closer to market."
About Centivax
Centivax is a universal immunity company, deploying a proprietary computational immune-engineering platform to create vaccines and therapies that deliver universal protection against entire classes of diverse targets. The lead clinical candidate for influenza—featured in The New Yorker, the Netflix docuseries Pandemic: How to Prevent an Outbreak, and other outlets—addresses a greater than $7 billion global flu market, with follow-on programs spanning a growing pipeline for RSV/hMPV, herpesviruses, HIV, malaria, oncology, and a universal antivenom. This growing portfolio underscores the technology’s broad potential not only to protect against a wide array of infectious diseases–including viral, bacterial, protozoan, fungal, parasitic and man-made bioterror threats–but also to improve healthspan by reducing the long-term complications these pathogens can trigger, such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, cardiovascular and neurodegenerative disease. Centivax is headquartered in South San Francisco, California. Visit www.centivax.com and follow @Centivax on X.
Media Contact
Stephanie Wisner, MBA
Chief Business Officer
stephanie@centivax.com | +1 415-712-0001
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SOURCE Centivax
