Medicago, a biopharmaceutical company headquartered in Quebec City, began Phase 1 clinical trials for its plant-derived COVID-19 vaccine candidate this week, administering the first doses in healthy human volunteers.
“We are thrilled to see our COVID-19 vaccine candidate enter the Phase 1 trial, and we look forward to obtaining safety and immunogenicity results in October,” said Nathalie Landry, executive vice-president, scientific and medical affairs at Medicago. “Our progress continues to demonstrate the value of Medicago’s unique plant-based vaccine technology.”
The Phase I clinical trial is a randomized, partially blinded study of 180 normal healthy subjects, male and female aged 18-55, and will evaluate dosages of 3.75, 7.5 or 15 micrograms of the recombinant Coronavirus Virus-Like Particle (CoVLP) vaccine candidate alone or with an adjuvant. An adjuvant can be of particular importance in a pandemic situation as it may boost the immune response and reduce the amount of antigen required per dose, allowing more vaccine doses to be produced and therefore contributing to protect the greatest number of people.
Medicago’s platform and plant-based manufacturing technology is helping to diversify the pool of COVID-19 vaccines in development, according to the company.
“Creating a sufficient supply of COVID-19 vaccines within the next year is a challenge which will require multiple approaches, with different technologies,” said Bruce Clark, president and CEO of Medicago. “Our proven plant-based technology is capable of contributing to the collective solution to this public health emergency.”
Medicago expects to be able to manufacture approximately 100 million doses by the end of 2021. By the end of 2023, the construction of Medicago’s large-scale facility in Quebec City will be complete. It is anticipated that this commercial facility will have the capacity to produce up to 1 billion doses of the COVID-19 vaccine annually.
Medicago is the only company with plant-based manufacturing technology that has completed Phase 3 clinical trials (with its quadrivalent VLP influenza vaccine candidate) and pandemic Phase 2 clinical trials (with its H1N1 pandemic vaccine candidate).
Check out our recent podcast episode with Medicago’s Nathalie Charland where she talks about the vaccine and how it is produced.
