Candidate: Vaccine
Category: VAX
Type: Vaccine based on BAT’s proprietary, fast-growing tobacco plant technology
Status: British American Tobacco’s Kentucky biotech subsidiary, Kentucky BioProcessing (KBP), said April 1 it has developed a potential COVID-19 vaccine that is in preclinical testing. Subject to finding partners and gaining government support, KBP said, it could manufacture between 1 and 3 million doses of the vaccine per week, starting in June. Work on the COVID-19 vaccine project will be carried out on a not-for-profit basis, according to KBP, which is a commercial entity.
KBP said it recently cloned a portion of COVID-19’s genetic sequence which led to the development of a potential antigen. The antigen was inserted into tobacco plants for reproduction and, once the plants were harvested, the antigen was then purified, and is now undergoing preclinical testing.
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
