Adjuvants have been added to vaccines to enhance the immune response to vaccine antigens for more than a century, with the discovery of aluminium salts as a beneficial component for vaccines. However, most of the know-how around the research, development and use of adjuvants is still not readily available to the vaccine community.
This led to the creation of the Vaccine Formulation Laboratory (VFL) initially at the University of Lausanne in 2010, supported by the World Health Organization. After its externalization from the University, VFI established itself as an independent, not-for-profit company in Switzerland.
VFI’s mission is to provide adjuvants, research on adjuvants, preclinical development of adjuvanted vaccines, technology transfer and training, to the entire vaccine community, with a focus to low- and middle-income countries. VFI’s team works across several sites including two state-of-the art laboratories in Geneva and Lausanne (Switzerland).