Blue Water Vaccines Inc, a privately held company, has signed an option agreement with the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom, it was reported yesterday.

The option agreement has been signed for providing Blue Water Vaccines with the option to exclusively license a novel and potentially revolutionary universal influenza vaccine. Blue Water Vaccines will complete its fund-raising of USD15m to support the flu vaccine program.

The vaccine has been developed by scientists at Oxford University and published in Nature Communications in 2018. It is claimed to protect against all influenza strains by targeting parts of the virus that induce a protective immune response but are also limited in variability. The technology is claimed to have the potential to provide life-long immunity against flu.