Naobios partners with SGS to manufacture RSV challenge agent
Lucy Batizovsky | March 19, 2026 | News story | Manufacturing and Production | Naobios, RSV, SGS
Contract Development and Manufacturing Organisation (CDMO) Naobios has partnered with SGS, a testing, inspection and certification company, to manufacture a Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) challenge agent) to be used in Controlled Human Infection Model (CHIM) studies conducted by SGS.
The Human Viral Challenge Agent (HVCA) is derived from a 2015 A-strain isolate, closely mirroring currently circulating RSV strains, allowing researchers to generate data on vaccine efficacy and immune response dynamics.
HVCAs are used in strictly controlled clinical trials where healthy volunteers are given a dose of a pathogen to test vaccines or curative treatments.
Eric Le Forestier, general manager of Naobios, said: “In response to the growing use of CHIM studies, we have invested to extend our range of services, enabling us to meet the critical needs of clients worldwide.
“This partnership with SGS demonstrates that Naobios continues to be a key global player and first-choice partner for viral challenge agent manufacturing in accordance with cGMP.”
In October 2025, 12 healthy participants were inoculated with the RSV-A strain challenge agent at the SGS Clinical Pharmacology Unit I Antwerp, Belgium, with participants showing a 100% attack rate with mild, self-resolving pathology.
RSV is one of the world’s foremost causes of severe respiratory infections in infants, immunocompromised adults and the elderly, contributing to approximately 64 million infections globally each year. According to the US National Foundation for Infectious Diseases, RSV is the most common cause of hospitalisation in children under the age of one year in the US.
Naobios has released 36 GMP batches of HVCA, including for SARS-CoV-2, RSV and hMPV and influenza.
Jelle Klein, Medical Director, SGS CPU, said: “Controlled Human Infection Models are a powerful tool to de-risk and accelerate early vaccine development when conducted under the highest scientific, ethical and biosafety standards.
“Following GMP manufacturing of the RSV challenge agent by Naobios, SGS was responsible for the full clinical validation within a CHIM setting, including study design, clinical execution, safety oversight and virological assessments, enabling the generation of robust, decision-enabling data for RSV vaccine and antiviral development.
“The clear step-by-step approach of Naobios provided us with a solid overview on which assessments were performed, when they were completed and what the results were. This provided us with full oversight of the process, allowing us to adjust clinical timelines based on emerging data.”
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