Emergex Vaccines has obtained regulatory approvals to commence the Phase I clinical trial of its Covid-19 vaccine candidate.
The double-blind, randomised, comparator-controlled trial will analyse the safety and tolerability of high and low doses of the vaccine.
Go deeper with GlobalData
To be conducted by the University of Lausanne, Switzerland Center for Primary Care and Public Health professor Blaise Genton, the trial will enrol a total of 13 subjects into two groups.
The company expects to dose the first subject with the first dose of the vaccine in January 2022.
Apart from safety and tolerability, the trial will offer information on CD8+ T-Cell-facilitated immune responses as a measure of protection against SARS-CoV-2 infection.
Emergex Vaccines chief commercial officer Robin Cohen said: “Our T Cell priming vaccines may offer significant benefits over current Covid-19 vaccines, including longer-lasting immunity and broader protection against new variants.
US Tariffs are shifting - will you react or anticipate?
Don’t let policy changes catch you off guard. Stay proactive with real-time data and expert analysis.
By GlobalData“We are proud to announce the initiation of this trial and look forward to gathering data to support the development of this important next-generation vaccine.”
The company is currently carrying out another Phase I trial of its dengue vaccine candidate in Switzerland.
All the subjects in this naNO-DENGUE trial have received two doses of the shot.
The vaccines developed by Emergex are designed to prime naive CD8+ T-Cells to produce virus-specific CD8+ T-cells/Cytotoxic T Lymphocytes (CTLs) to destroy cells infected by the virus.
This approach also averts disease, hinders replication of the virus and lowers symptoms and disease transmission.
The company claimed that as against currently available vaccine technologies that depend on an antibody immune response, its T-Cell priming vaccines can potentially be more efficient in targeting viruses that mutate, thereby avoiding the booster shot requirements.
Emergex also stated that its vaccine may offer cross-reactive immunity to the SARS-CoV-1 virus, as well as all variants and strains of SARS-CoV-2, thereby providing wide-ranging immune protection from two viruses with a single vaccine.
