Vivaldi Biosciences Appoints Manfred Reiter, PhD as Senior Vice President, Manufacturing

Fort Collins, CO – April 28, 2017- Vivaldi Biosciences Inc., a clinical-stage biotechnology company developing genetically attenuated live influenza vaccines for seasonal and pandemic influenza, today announced the appointment of Manfred Reiter, PhD as Senior Vice President, Manufacturing. Dr. Reiter has responsibility for Vero cell-based production of Vivaldi’s DeltaFLU live attenuated influenza vaccines (LAIVs), including process optimization, scale-up, and manufacture in compliance with global quality standards. In the near-term, Dr. Reiter will lead production of a candidate DeltaFLU LAIV for the company’s planned Phase 2 clinical program to demonstrate protection in vaccinated volunteers challenged with a strain not included in the vaccine. Demonstration of such cross-protection against heterologous (unmatched) strains would be a significant advantage over currently available influenza vaccines.

“Manfred Reiter brings to Vivaldi substantial pharmaceutical industry experience and technical expertise in production of human vaccines in Vero cell culture that will be invaluable in the scale-up, tech transfer, and GMP production of DeltaFLU vaccines. We expect our advanced Vero cell manufacturing platform will provide significant advantages in terms of speed, scale-up, capacity, reliability, and cost versus egg substrate manufacturing, the standard method of influenza vaccine production. Manfred is an industry leader in process development and cell-based vaccine production. We are pleased he has joined the Vivaldi team,” said Thomas Muster, PhD, Chief Scientific Officer. 

Dr. Reiter has more than 30 years of experience managing process development and manufacturing teams for the development of human vaccines and recombinant therapeutic proteins, including cell-based production with Vero and other platforms. He has substantial experience with technologies and processes utilized in pre-clinical, clinical, and commercial development of biologicals, including scale-up and technology transfer to contract manufacturing organizations (CMOs). Dr. Reiter’s career includes 14 years with Baxter Bioscience, initially as Director, Upstream Process Development, and then as Senior Director, Process Development, Vaccines & Therapeutics, with responsibility for a team of process scientists and engineers for process development, and clinical and commercial production of vaccines and therapeutic proteins. Prior to joining Vivaldi, Dr. Reiter was Vice President of Process Development & Manufacturing at Hookipa Biotech AG, managing process development and GMP cell-substrate production of viral and cancer vaccines. Dr. Reiter is an inventor on 25 vaccine and therapeutic protein patent families, with more than 700 international patent records.