$9.27 Million Funds Oral XBB COVID-19 Vaccine Candidate Development

Vaxart, Inc. today announced that the United States Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) has awarded the Company $9.27 million to fund preparation for a 10,000-subject Phase 2b clinical study evaluating Vaxart's oral pill XBB COVID-19 vaccine candidate against an approved mRNA vaccine comparator.

Vaxart's oral pill vaccine platform provides many of the features desired by BARDA, such as generating mucosal immunity and providing a cross-reactive response to many COVID variants.

"We believe we have the chance to improve on existing vaccines in two important ways," said Dr. James F. Cummings, Vaxart's Chief Medical Officer, in a press release on January 19, 2024.

"First, a thermostable pill vaccine such as Vaxart's offers the chance to overcome needle-phobia, a documented obstacle to vaccination, and offers the potential to make it easier to vaccinate more people faster than traditional injected vaccines."

"Second, our previous research on other vaccine constructs found Vaxart's oral pill vaccine to be cross-reactive against all tested SARS-CoV-2 variants and to trigger long-lasting immune responses, potentially offering broader, longer protection than the current first-generation vaccines."

"We believe our vaccine does this by triggering both a systemic and mucosal response."

This oral vaccine development project has been funded with federal funds from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Project NextGen is a $5 billion initiative by HHS to develop new, innovative vaccines and therapeutics that provide broader and more durable protection against COVID-19 than the first-generation COVID vaccines and medicines.

Project NextGen is separate but similar to the Disease X initiative.