Candidate: Vaccines to prevent, intercept or treat COVID-19
Category: VAX
Type: Vaccines to be based upon VaxCelerate, a self-assembling vaccine platform exclusively licensed by Voltron from the Vaccine and Immunotherapy Center at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH).
Status: Hoth said August 10 it licensed from George Washington University intellectual property rights related to the development of a medical device that could allow public health professionals to immediately diagnose COVID-19 infection via breath sample and track through a mobile device. The device is based on nanotechnology Nanoholes using Plasmonics principles. The device’s surface is covered in a thin sheet of gold that can bind with other molecules, such as those of a gas. Once binding occurs, the wavelength of light bouncing off the surface changes, creating a different color of light.
Mona E. Zaghloul, PhD, a professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at GW’s School of Engineering and Applied Science, and her former doctoral student Yangyang Zhao, developed the design of the device, based on prior work of other former students, in collaboration with the National Institute of Standards and Technology to detect and distinguish different species of gas.
Hoth and Voltron subsidiary HaloVax said April 2 they entered into a Sponsored Research Agreement with the Vaccine and Immunotherapy Center (VIC) of Massachusetts General Hospital to co-develop a new vaccine designed to protect patients at risk of COVID-19 infection, applying the Self-Assembling Vaccine (SAV) platform developed by the VIC and licensed exclusively to Voltron. The vaccine is expected to enter animal testing within the next 30 days, the companies said.
On March 27, Hoth and HaloVax said they agreed to jointly develop a salf-assembling vaccine to develop a vaccine designed to protect patients at risk COVID-19. The companies said the technology initially showed proof of concept in Lassa Fever, with support from the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD).
Four days earlier, Hoth and Voltron said they formed HaloVax, a joint venture, to begin preclinical studies for COVID-19 vaccine candidates with support from MGH. VaxCelerate—which consists of a fixed immune adjuvant and a variable immune target and offers several potential advantages over other compounds in combination therapy. In infectious applications, it allows rapid development against viruses and other pathogens. The vaccine focuses on both DNA and internal/external mutated proteins providing the immune system with more potential targets to attack.
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
