Candidate: Vaccines against COVID-19
Category: VAX
Types: Recombinant protein-based vaccine consisting of the receptor binding domain (RBD) of the spike protein of the coronavirus, designed to bind to receptors found deep in the host lung tissue.
Status: Peter J. Hoetz, MD, PhD, professor and dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine (BCM), told China’s state news agency Xinhua on March 17 that his group at BCM’s Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development was working to develop a vaccine in collaboration with U.S. institutions that included the University of Texas Medical Branch, and the New York Blood Center, as well as the Virology Center at Fudan University in Shanghai.
The RBD for SARS has already been manufactured for clinical use, BCM said, and additional preclinical tests are being conducted to advance it into clinical trials to determine if it is safe, sufficiently protective, or cross-reactive against COVID-19. The Baylor College of Medicine teams are also developing the RBD from COVID-19.
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
