Candidates: “Novel therapeutic drugs” to be selected; Prophylactic vaccine

Types: Drug type(s) not specified, but are to be selected from “a number of promising lead compounds from internal in vitro studies,” company says; Recombinant protein vaccine for COVID-19 based on company’s Baculovirus Expression Vector System (BEVS) technology.

Status: Shionogi on April 28 said it will develop novel therapeutic drugs against COVID-19 and a prophylactic vaccine designed to prevent the disease. Both efforts will emerge from collaborations with “public institutions, academia, and partner companies,” according to the company. Shionogi is partnering with the Hokkaido University Research Center for Zoonosis Control to identify drugs active against COVID-19. That work is among top priorities, Shionogi said, with the goal of starting clinical trials later this year.

Through its UMN Pharma subsidiary, Shionogi said April 27 it has been pursuing discovery and development of a BEVS-based COVID-19 vaccine since March. The vaccine effort is supported by the Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development (AMED). Shionogi said it will accelerate efforts to rapidly progress the vaccine into nonclinical and clinical trials and scale-up studies, with the aim of offering the vaccine to 10 million people.


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

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