Candidate: Vaccine to prevent COVID-19
Category: VAX
Type: Vaccine intended to combine Intravacc’s Outer Membrane Vesicles (OMV) delivery platform with synthetically produced COVID-19 epitopes (protein allergens) designed and optimized by EpiVax using its iVAX immunoinformatics toolkit.
Status: Intravacc, a translational R&D vaccine institute based in Bilthoven, the Netherlands, and EpiVax said June 2 they agreed to collaborate on developing a novel vaccine designed to generate a safe and highly effective T-cell response against SARS-CoV-2 and related coronaviruses.
In addition to EpiVax’s iVAX, the vaccine would incorporate Intravacc’s “click-on” OMV technology, based on spherical particles with intrinsic adjuvating properties. Through genetic engineering, OMVs can be decorated with immunogenic peptides designed to combine T-cell epitopes that drive effective adaptive immunity. Intravacc reasons that heterologous OMV vaccines can protect against pathogens that require a high level of containment, that are difficult to cultivate, or that contain viral and/or parasitic proteins.
The partners said preclinical studies will start immediately to identify the best candidate peptides for the vaccine. Intravacc will use its in-house pilot-scale facility for the GMP production of the OMV-peptide vaccine, for Phase I studies expected to start in the fourth quarter.
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
