Temperton has a longstanding collaboration with VisMederi (Siena, Italy), which undertakes serological assays for pharma and towards licensure of influenza, coronavirus, and other vaccines. Temperton’s influenza and SARS-CoV-2 neutralisation assays and know-how have been successfully translated to VisMederi via this collaboration, and in 2016 a new PV-based enzyme-linked lectin assay (PV-ELLA) was co-developed that enables the measurement of responses to neuraminidase (NA) in influenza vaccines. This new assay is highlighted by CEO Professor Emanuele Montomoli: ‘In 2016, a VisMederi researcher, Fabrizio Biuso, joined Nigel Temperton’s laboratory for refining the […] pseudotypes platform. In particular the project […] aimed to study the development of [an] ELLA assay […] to evaluate human anti-NA antibodies’. 

According to Montomoli, the transfer of Temperton’s PV technology ‘allowed VisMederi to execute several clinical and preclinical studies and it was […] applied to Flu, Rabies and now [in 2020] it will be useful […] in SARS CoV-2 studies in order to accelerate the development of SARS-CoV-2 assays’. Montomoli states that working with PV will ‘eliminate the need [… for] wild-type virus, meaning […] this assay can be performed at biosafety level II (BSL2)’, and that ‘R&D of this nature would be laborious and expensive to perform with the native virus’, confirming that ‘the collaboration with Nigel Temperton […] saved costs to the company and increased the staff safety level’.