Centivax, Inc. appoints Jerald Sadoff, M.D., as Chief Medical Officer

Centivax Inc., a universal vaccine platform biotechnology company, today announced the appointment of Dr. Jerald Sadoff, M.D. as Chief Medical Officer with immediate effect. Dr. Sadoff has more than fifty years of experience in vaccine development. He has overseen or played a key role in the approval of more vaccines than any other currently active vaccine developer, including vaccines against Hepatitis A “VAQTA ®”; Haemophilus,“Liquid Pedvax”; Varicella,“ Varivax II®”; Measles, Mumps, Rubella and Varicella combination “ProQuad®”; Zoster, “Zostavax™”; Rotavirus “Rotateq®”; Human Papilloma Virus, “Gardasil®”; Ebola, “Zabdeno®+Mvabea®” and Covid-19, “Jcovden”. In total, there are fourteen vaccines for which he has played a key developmental role, with one additional vaccine now in late-stage clinical studies. He currently serves on several Scientific Advisory Boards for NIH-sponsored HIV and Malaria vaccine efforts, including the NIAID AIDS Vaccine Research Working Group. Over the last 35 years, he has authored over 350 articles, book chapters, and abstracts, and has 29 issued patents.

Most recently, Dr. Sadoff served as Senior Advisor Vaccine Development for Janssen Infectious Diseases and Vaccines, a division of Johnson & Johnson, where he held various leadership roles for more than a decade, leading the clinical development efforts for universal flu vaccines as well as for monoclonal antibodies and vaccines against HIV, Malaria, RSV, Ebola and Covid-19. For these efforts, he received the Johnson Gold Medal for Science and Technology. Prior to Janssen, Dr. Sadoff spent seven years at the AERAS Global TB Vaccine Foundation as President and CEO, where he helped develop and test the first new TB vaccines (4) in more than 40 years. Previous to AERAS, he spent eight years at Merck Co as Head of Clinical Vaccine development where he led and played a key role in licensing 9 vaccines. Prior to Merck, Dr. Sadoff spent 22 years at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR), where he became head of vaccine development after working on a variety of vaccines against Malaria, Hepatitis A, Dengue, Shigella, Cholera, Gonorrhea, Pseudomonas, Klebsiella and E. Coli. At Walter Reed, Dr. Sadoff was awarded the Paul A. Siple Memorial Medallion: Army Science Conference (1st Place), as well as placing first and second in the two other Army Science conferences he participated in, and was awarded the Army Legion of Merit for his service to the Nation.

“Jerald brings unparalleled, world-class expertise in vaccine development and clinical trial design. The successes in his career have transformed the modern commercial vaccine landscape,” says Dr. Jacob Glanville, Centivax Co-Founder and CEO. “To us, it was always clear that luminary clinical design and execution was key to our mission of maximizing global impact of universal vaccines in the 21st century and beyond. Jerald’s decision to join our company full time will dramatically accelerate our vaccine development with his depth of experience, knowledge of the industry, connections with government, industrial and academic partners.”

“Centivax technology is one of the most exciting approaches I have seen to solve the problem of variability which has plagued our efforts to make vaccines against some of the most important current and future pathogens we face,” says Dr. Sadoff. “Solving this problem— along with the advanced bioinformatic, structural biology and AI approaches which are at the core of Centivax—will allow us to keep several steps ahead of the pathogens and potentially prevent the surprises that have devastated us in the past and made some of our vaccines ineffective. I’ve chosen to join Centivax full time because after careful due diligence, I came to believe in this technology and the potential of Centivax’s universal vaccine solution to transform the vaccine industry.”

About Centivax
Centivax is a universal vaccine platform technology company. Founded by leading experts in pharmaceutical development, immunology, vaccine science, computational immunology, and broadly neutralizing antibody engineering, Centivax is on a mission to accelerate the world’s transition to a post-pathogen humanity.

The patented universal vaccine platform is widely compatible with mRNA/LNP encoded vaccines, protein vaccines and VLPs. It has demonstrated unprecedented breadth of protection against influenza and coronaviruses. The platform delivers ultra-broad neutralizing titers and in-vivo protection in ferrets, pigs, rats, and mice. Centivax is applying the technology to HIV, and at least 24 other pathogens are seen as ideal future targets for the portfolio. Centivax platform development has been backed by Global Health Investment Corporation/BARDA Ventures, Project NextGen QuickFire (J&J/BARDA), the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the National Institute of Health (NIH), the Naval Medical Research Center, the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, the Medical Technology Enterprise Consortium, the Department of Defense, the National Institute for Innovation in Manufacturing Biopharmaceuticals, NFX, and the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) together with Johnson & Johnson Innovation through the joint BlueKnight initiative.

Contact Information

Stephanie Wisner

Chief Business Officer

Centivax

info@centivax.com