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Glaxo Signs Another Deal to Develop a Coronavirus Vaccine

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GlaxoSmithKline plc (GSK - Free Report) and privately-held Medicago announced a collaboration to develop and evaluate a COVID-19 candidate vaccine. The vaccine candidate will be produced using Medicago’s recombinant Coronavirus Virus-Like Particles (CoVLP) and Glaxo’s pandemic adjuvant system.

Medicago’s CoVLP technology will be used to develop a vaccine, which will mimic the structure of the virus responsible for COVID-19. Glaxo’s pandemic adjuvant system will be used to boost the immune response and reduce the amount of antigen required per dose. The adjuvant system will allow production of more vaccine doses than normal vaccine candidate.

Pre-clinical data has shown that a single dose of the vaccine candidate has generated high level of neutralizing antibodies when administered with adjuvant. A phase I study is expected to start by the middle of this month. The study will evaluate the safety and immunogenicity of three different dose levels of antigen administered with Glaxo’s pandemic adjuvant system or an adjuvant from another company.

The companies aim to complete development and make the vaccine available in the first half of 2021. Medicago’s CoVLP vaccine candidate is highly scalable, which can support the production of large amounts of vaccine in a significantly shortened timeline. The companies believe that a highly scalable vaccine candidate along with Glaxo’s adjuvant system will help them to manufacture approximately 100m doses by the end of 2021. They expect to deliver up to 1 billion doses annually by the end of 2023.

The companies may extend their collaboration to develop a post-pandemic COVID-19 vaccine candidate as well as vaccine candidates for other infectious diseases.

So far this year, Glaxo’s shares have declined 14% compared with the industry’s 0.4% decline.

Glaxo has formed several collaborations to make its pandemic adjuvant technology available to partners, including scientific partners in North America, Europe and China, who are making adjuvanted COVID-19 vaccine candidates. It has announced plans to produce one billion doses of its pandemic vaccine adjuvant in 2021 that can be used for the development of COVID-19 vaccine candidates that are suitable for use with an adjuvant.

Glaxo has a collaboration with Sanofi (SNY - Free Report) to combine their innovative technologies to develop an adjuvanted COVID-19 vaccine. The vaccine candidate is expected to enter clinical studies in the second half of 2020. The company has also signed an agreement with Vir Biotechnology (VIR - Free Report) to develop antibody treatments for coronaviruses including SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.

Last month, the company announced that its China-based partner Clover Biopharmaceuticals has initiated a phase I study to develop a COVID-19 vaccine candidate using Glaxo’s pandemic vaccine adjuvant technology.

Several other pharma/biotech companies are also speeding up efforts to make a vaccine for COVID-19.  Novavax, Moderna (MRNA - Free Report) , Inovio Pharmaceuticals, Pfizer and partner BioNTech have already initiated human/clinical studies on a coronavirus vaccine. Several other vaccine candidates are in pre-clinical stage of development.

Zacks Rank

Glaxo currently has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

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