Medigen Vaccine Biologics Corp. (MVC) today announced the preclinical results of their COVID-19 vaccine candidate has been peer-reviewed and published in Scientific Reports, the internationally renowned SCI journal of the Nature Publishing Group. The published manuscript titled "Development of CpG-adjuvanted stable prefusion SARS-CoV-2 spike antigen as a subunit vaccine against COVID-19" was previously available as pre-print on bioRxiv.org, and can be found on the Scientific Reports website using the following link:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-77077-z。
The Abstract of the manuscript is as below:
The COVID-19 pandemic is a worldwide health emergency which calls for an unprecedented race for vaccines and treatment. In developing a COVID-19 vaccine, we applied technology previously used for MERS-CoV to produce a prefusion-stabilized SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, S-2P. To enhance immunogenicity and mitigate the potential vaccine-induced immunopathology, CpG 1018, a Th1-biasing synthetic toll-like receptor 9 (TLR9) agonist was selected as an adjuvant candidate. S-2P in combination with CpG 1018 and aluminum hydroxide (alum) was found to be the most potent immunogen and induced high titer of neutralizing antibodies in sera of immunized mice against pseudotyped lentivirus reporter or live wild-type SARS-CoV-2. In addition, the antibodies elicited were able to cross-neutralize pseudovirus containing the spike protein of the D614G variant, indicating the potential for broad spectrum protection. A marked Th1 dominant response was noted from cytokines secreted by splenocytes of mice immunized with CpG 1018 and alum. No vaccine-related serious adverse effects were found in the dose-ranging study in rats administered single- or two-dose regimens of S-2P combined with CpG 1018 alone or CpG 1018 with alum. These data support continued development of CHO-derived S-2P formulated with CpG 1018 and alum as a candidate vaccine to prevent COVID-19 disease.
Medigen Contact:
Paul Torkehagen,
Director, Overseas Business Development
paul@medigenvac.com