Single Dose, Intranasal, Live Attenuated, COVID-19 Vaccine Candidate Launches Study

Long Island-based Codagenix Inc. and the Serum Institute of India Pvt. Ltd. recently announced that the first patient had been dosed in the Phase 1 clinical trial of COVI-VAC, a single-dose, intranasal, live attenuated vaccine against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Codagenix expects to report initial data from the study by mid-2021.

The study will also evaluate the vaccine candidate's ability to provoke an immune response by measuring neutralizing antibodies, mucosal immunity in the airway, and cellular immunity. Live-attenuated vaccines generally elicit a robust immune response and are associated with long-lasting cellular immunity.

COVI-VAC was developed with Codagenix's Synthetic Attenuated Virus Engineering platform, which uses synthetic biology to re-code viruses' genes into safe and stable vaccines. This vaccine is designed to produce immunity against all SARS-CoV-2 proteins, not just the spike surface protein.

Pending results of the Phase 1 trial, the companies expect to begin advanced clinical testing in mid-2021.