Is There a Coronavirus Vaccine? Here’s Everything You Need …

iBio

This Texas-based biotech company uses modified relatives of the tobacco plant to grow viral proteins for vaccines. The company is partnering with a Chinese vaccine maker to put its FastPharming platform to work on a Covid-19 vaccine. Company officials expect to have a candidate ready for animal testing later this summer.

Baylor College of Medicine / New York Blood Center

Peter Hotezs group is pushing for funding to test their SARS vaccine against the Covid-19. He says they already have about 20,000 doses ready to be deployed for clinical trials. These researchers are simultaneously working on developing a new vaccine from scratch, based on the binding receptor domain of the new virus, SARS-Cov-2, but that will take several years to develop.

University of Queensland

A team of Australian researchers, with funding from CEPI, have developed a vaccine candidate they say is ready to move forward into human testing. It relies on a molecular clamp technology invented in the lab of molecular virologist Keith Chappell, which helps stabilize viral proteins so they have the same shape theyd have on the surface of the virus. The group is now intending to ramp up production for clinical trials.

University of Saskatchewan

Canadian health authorities have given university researchers the green light to start working on a vaccine against Covid-19. Theyve used the viruss published genome sequence to begin building protein-based candidates and are now waiting for live versions of the virus to begin testing in animal models.

University of Oxford / Advent Srl

A team of researchers at the University of Oxfords Jenner Institute had been working on a vaccine against MERS, which they quickly tailored to the new coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2. In February, the scientists signed an agreement with Italian vaccine maker Srl to produce the first 1,000 doses of the new vaccine, ChAdOx1, to supply human trials.

And a few more are developing viral vector-based strategies:

Sanofi

One of the so-called Big Four, Sanofi has been working with BARDA since 2004 on pandemic preparedness, including against SARS. The company has expanded this arrangement to focus on a Covid-19 vaccine using the companys recombinant DNA platform, which involves swapping in parts of the coronavirus RNA with genetic material from a harmless virus. Sanofi expects to have a vaccine candidate to test in animals within six months. Human testing could begin sometime in 2021.

Johnson & Johnson

Johnson & Johnson is expanding on the companys past work with BARDA to develop an Ebola vaccine to pursue a vaccine against Covid-19. With funding from the government agency, the companys plan is to deactivate the virus, producing a vaccine that triggers an immune response without causing infection. The company has not released any information regarding development timelines.

Geovax Labs / BravoVax

Atlanta-based GeoVax signed an agreement in January to work with BravoVax, a private company Wuhan, China, to jointly develop a vaccine against Covid-19. Under the collaboration, GeoVax will be providing its proprietary platforma modified pox virus that can be designed to express viral proteins from SARS-CoV-2.

Tonix

In February, this New Yorkbased biopharma startup announced it is collaborating with the nonprofit Southern Research to develop a live, modified horsepox virus modified to express protein fragments from SARS-CoV-2. Company officials have not released any further timelines.

CanSino Biologics

Chinese vaccine-maker CanSino is reportedly developing a viral vector-based vaccine against Covid-2019 but no further information is available at this time.

Greffex

The CEO of this Houston-based genetic engineering company announced last month that they have completed the design of a vaccine against Covid-19. The company has not released any information about its lead candidate, but Grefex reportedly makes adenovirus-based vector vaccines involving a harmless virus that can be genetically tweaked to express foreign genes, like one for the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein.

And last but not least, is the only company attempting to attenuate a live SARS-CoV-2 virus:

Codagenix

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Is There a Coronavirus Vaccine? Here's Everything You Need ...