Candidate: IBIO-200, vaccine for preventing SARS-CoV-2 infection
Category: VAX
Type: Plant-derived vaccine SARS-CoV-2 Virus-Like Particle (VLP)-based constructs manufactured using iBio’s FastPharming System™, designed to produce the nanoparticles in, and purify them from, plants.
Status: iBio said April 9 the Infectious Disease Research Institute (IDRI) will support preclinical development and provide clinical trial oversight for iBio’s IBIO-200 vaccine development program for COVID-19. iBio and IDRI also agreed to establish a separate, additional agreement within the next 60 days if the company opts to include one of IDRI’s novel adjuvants in the program.
In March, iBio said it advanced iBIO-200 to immunization studies at Texas A&M University System (TAMUS) laboratories, under a Master Joint Development Agreement established between iBio and TAMUS in 2016. The partners seek to optimize a combination of VLP and adjuvant to advance to human clinical trials. iBio has developed two types of VLPs, glycosylated and non-glycosylated, as options for development.
iBio said it created its proprietary VLP candidates in just a few weeks using FastPharming, then deployed the VLP platform to deliver VLPs for further development just weeks after designing the biologics. On March 18, iBio announced creation of the constructs and the filing seven days earlier of four provisional U.S. patent applications supporting the platform and other technologies for treating or preventing SARS-CoV-2 infections.
In February, iBio and Beijing CC-Pharming disclosed plans to develop and test a COVID-19 vaccine, combining the vaccine R&D experience—including work on the MERS-coronavirus—by CC-Pharming Chairman and CSO Kevin Wang, PhD, and iBio VP Upstream Bioprocessing Sylvain Marcel, PhD, in rapid design of manufacturing processes for biopharmaceutical production in plant-based expression systems. If successful, the research will deliver product candidates for production at iBio’s FastPharming Manufacturing Facility, built in 2010 with funding from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). The facility is equipped with automated hydroponics and vertical farming systems designed to produce biologics, using a relative of the tobacco plant.
COVID-19: 200 Candidates and Counting
To navigate through the >200 potential therapeutic and vaccine options for COVID-19, GEN has grouped the candidates into four broad categories based on their developmental and (where applicable) clinical progress:
● FRONT RUNNER – the most promising therapeutics/vaccines based on clinical progress, favorable data or both.
● DEFINITELY MAYBE – earlier phases with promising partners, or more advanced candidates in development that have generated uneven data
● KEEPING AN EYE ON… – interesting technology, attracting notable partners, or both, but preliminary data.
● TOO SOON TO TELL – longshots pending additional experimental and/or clinical data.
GEN has also tagged the most common treatment types:
● ANTIVIRAL
● VAX
● ANTIBODY
● RNA