Candidates: Vaccine and drug against COVID-19
Category: ANTIVIRAL
Type: Therapeutics based on the company’s proprietary light-activated Photo Dynamic Compounds (PDCs)
Status: Theralese said August 19 it signed a sponsored research agreement with the University of Manitoba (UM) Medical Microbiology department to begin developing a COVID-19 vaccine and therapy using Theralase’s patented, light-activated Photo Dynamic Compounds (PDCs). UM agreed to conduct experiments with Theralase toward research and development of a COVID-19 vaccine and therapeutic to be studied during 2021 in animal, then human clinical testing.
Kevin Coombs, PhD, professor, department of medical microbiology, will lead the research for UM. His research has focused on how COVID-19 impacts genes and proteins in lung cells. Coombs will lead a multi-institutional consortium that will use next-generation sequencing and SomaScan to rapidly determine how COVID-19 and other coronaviruses affect large numbers of genes and proteins in different human cells, Theralese said.
Coombs stated that he had completed a preliminary analysis showing that PDCs killed H1N1 Influenza and Zika virus, both with and without light activation, at concentrations well below toxicity levels observed in mammalian cells or mammalian patients.
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
