ARMR Sciences, a small biotech company co-founded by Collin Gage, is on the cusp of a very exciting breakthrough. This innovation will be a game-changer in the ongoing fight against opioid overdoses. The company is currently working on a vaccine for fentanyl. Unlike traditional vaccines, this powerful therapeutic vaccine will neutralize fentanyl in the bloodstream before it can damage brain cells. This groundbreaking strategy emphasizes keeping people safe from overdose. In doing so, it can help save an innumerable amount of lives while the opioid crisis continues to worsen.
The vaccine has shown strong efficacy in preclinical trials on rats. Specifically, it prevented 92 to 98 percent of fentanyl from crossing the blood-brain barrier. The vaccine was shown to be effective for at least 20 weeks in animal models. Researchers think this might translate to about a year’s worth of immunity in humans. This durable impact makes the vaccine a powerful new tool in fighting today’s rampant fentanyl epidemic.
The company, ARMR Sciences, expects to begin its first human trial in early 2026. The trial will take place at the Centre for Human Drug Research in the Netherlands. CELESTIAL is designed to enroll around 40 healthy adults. The initial phase of the trial will be aimed at assessing the vaccine’s safety and finding the correct dosage. During the last stage of the study, a limited number of participants will take a medical dose of fentanyl. Scientists will look to see how well the vaccine blocks the drug’s effects.
“This new vaccine has the potential to be life-changing,” said Gage, who became the co-founder and CEO of ARMR Sciences in 2023. “This is something that could completely change the paradigm of how we deal with overdose, because it doesn’t require someone to be carrying the treatment on them,” he stated. This injectable monoclonal antibody is the first to focus on the prevention of overdoses related to fentanyl. It can help reduce deaths associated with this highly addictive opioid.
ARMR Sciences is currently investigating an oral alternative for later-stage trials. This new sublingual formulation that resembles a Listerine strip is an exciting complement to their injectable alternative. This could improve convenience and user-friendliness for those most vulnerable to overdose risk.
While its saliva-based delivery method has incredible potential, experts caution that the vaccine is not a silver bullet. Sharon Levy, an addiction medicine specialist and scientific adviser for ARMR, warns us not to let our guard down. She urges us to not let our guard down. “There’s only going to be so many antibodies,” she noted, highlighting that a sufficiently high dose of fentanyl could potentially bypass the vaccine’s protections and reach the brain.
Despite this apprehension, Levy is hopeful about public interest in a vaccine of this kind. “Overall, our experience has been that people would be interested in this,” she said. The possibility of a month-long protection from overdose is considered one of its biggest benefits. Marco Pravetoni, another expert involved in the project, remarked, “We think a month of protection is pretty good in terms of providing a safety net.”
The success of this vaccine has been made possible by improvements in adjuvant technology in recent years. Gage explained, “The big breakthrough in the past five or six years is the advancement of the adjuvant technology that we’re able to utilize now, which causes an extremely robust immune system response.” This advancement of technology not only makes the vaccine more effective but is the reason for its recently noted success in clinical trials.
On the cliff of its human trials, ARMR Sciences is chugging. The team’s deep commitment to innovation and creating new solutions to address the fentanyl crisis is palpable. Gage encapsulated this mission by stating, “What we’re trying to do is put some innovation and newfound technology behind this problem because I think we’re in desperate need of it.”
Fentanyl remains one of the most pressing public health challenges both in the United States and around the globe. As synthetic opioids grow more dangerous, innovative tools like ARMR Sciences’ vaccine can provide new possibilities for a safer future. Should clinical trials prove successful, this vaccine could play a pivotal role in changing how society addresses opioid overdoses and their associated risks.
