Years ago when Manon Cox wasn’t daydreaming about becoming a movie star or traveling the world, she found herself fascinated with the world of biology.
“The wonders of nature and the excitement in this field with the recent elucidation of the DNA structure was simply fascinating,” she recalls.
Turns out, that interest would lead Cox into a career in biotech. Cox is president and CEO of Protein Sciences Corp., a Meriden-based biopharmaceutical company that has developed Flublok, a groundbreaking eggless flu vaccine.
At the helm for a little more than two years, Cox has led Protein Sciences to unprecedented growth and exposure. The company, which posted revenues of more than $32 million last year and expects to exceed $40 million this year, has several late-stage patented recombinant protein-based vaccines in addition to Flublok, including two influenza vaccines that have completed several human clinical trials.
Protein Sciences received U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval in January to sell Flublok for use by people ages 18 to 49. The company is working on approvals for use with people 50 and older. Flublok is a first-of-its-kind eggless vaccine, meaning it’s made without a chicken egg or live virus, and can be produced more quickly than a traditional vaccine.
For Cox, getting Flublok approval was a huge milestone, and she continues to be heavily involved in developing plans for the product’s launch. Protein Sciences received a key recommendation from the advisory committee for immunization practices earlier this year for the use of its vaccine for adults with egg allergies. That led more than 10 percent of the nation’s hospitals to order the vaccine.
The company said recently that it expects to ship 250,000 doses this flu season, which is expected to generate millions of dollars in revenue.
“This is exciting as we are breaking new ground,” Cox said. “This is a unique vaccine in a commodity, but highly regulated and crowded market. We are bringing innovation to the vaccine industry. Flublok is a highly purified protein vaccine that contains three times more antigen and does not require the growth of the influenza virus, or… preservatives, or antibiotics.
“We expect that this product can appeal to people who have previously resisted taking the vaccine because they did not like all the other components, or they were afraid they would get the flu from the flu vaccine.”
Back in college, Cox studied molecular biology, biochemistry, and genetics, later landing her first job exploring the usefulness of human papilloma virus (HPV) screening for early detection of cervical cancer. Shortly thereafter, the opportunity arose to join now defunct Dutch fermentation company Gist-brocades as a research scientist.
Elected to join a three-year fast track development program, Cox ended up with an assignment exploring new business development opportunities, while also embarking on an executive international financial MBA program that brought her to the Simon School at Rochester University and Nijenrode University in the Netherlands.
Later, she was offered a management position in research and development at Gist-brocades, but decided that she was more interested in exploring a new path. The decision, made nearly 16 years ago, brought her to Protein Sciences.
Rachael Felberbaum, director of corporate communications and shareholder relations at Protein Sciences, described Cox as “impassioned.”
“Manon infuses her passion in everything she does,” Felberbaum said. “She is not afraid, she does not back down from a challenge, and she is the first one to throw herself in the trenches to get things done. Her enthusiasm is contagious and enrolls all to join her in the quest for success.”
That passion Cox exudes comes from the cutting-edge work being done at Protein Sciences — work she says is dramatically helping the broader health care community and industry. Cox said she feels the health care system in its current form needs to change into a “disease prevention” system.
“We need to make the patient/consumer more aware of the cost of healthcare and then prevention might become a higher priority,” Cox said. “We also need to do a better job in communicating why it is important to live healthy and get vaccinated.
“The work we do will drive innovation in the vaccine industry. No longer can our competitors afford to stand still and see vaccines as their ‘cash cow.’ The time has come to take a look at all the vaccines out there and evaluate whether we can come up with (safer) alternatives.”
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