Israel will test oral Covid vaccine, full details
Israel could be the first country to test an oral vaccine against Covid developed by the pharmaceutical company Oramed
Israel is about to become the first country in the world to test the oral Covid-19 vaccine developed by Oramed Pharmaceuticals. The company's CEO, Nadav Kidron, told the Jerusalem Post .
Oravax Medical, a joint venture formed in March between Oramad and India's Premas Biotech, is ready to begin clinical trials of its vaccine at Sourasky Medical Center in Tel Aviv after receiving approval for its study protocol.
The approval of the Ministry of Health is now awaited, expected within a few weeks.
The experimental phase will start with 24 volunteers who have not previously received a Covid vaccine. The Phase I / II study is expected to last approximately six weeks from the time of recruitment.
Oravax has already completed production in Europe of several thousand capsules which would be available for Israeli trials and later in other countries.
All the details.
THE NEW ORAVAX VACCINE CANDIDATE
Oravax's vaccine trains the immune system against three viral proteins instead of the single Spike protein targeted by Pfizer and Moderna sera. In this way "it should be much more resistant to Covid-19 variants," according to Kidron. The vaccine is being tested in preclinical studies against Covid-19 variants, including the Delta variant.
The vaccine is based on Oramad's' Pod 'oral delivery technology and Premas' vaccine technology.
WHAT DOES ORAMED DO
Founded in 2006, with offices in the United States and Israel, Oramed has developed a new POD (Protein Oral Delivery) technology for the oral delivery of a range of protein-based therapies, which would otherwise be administered by injection.
In March, it announced a joint venture with India-based Premas Biotech to develop a new oral vaccine. Together they formed Oravax. Premas has been working on developing a vaccine against the new coronavirus since March.
Oramed is also conducting a Phase III clinical trial under the auspices of the US FDA of an oral insulin pill for type 1 and 2 diabetes.
THE ADVANTAGES OF AN ORAL VACCINE
Advantages of an oral vaccine include ease of transport and large-scale distribution.
"An oral vaccine against Covid-19 would remove several obstacles to rapid and large-scale distribution, potentially allowing people to take the vaccine on their own at home," Oramed CEO said. "While ease of administration is critical today to accelerate inoculation rates, an oral vaccine could become even more valuable if a COVID-19 vaccine can be recommended every year like the standard flu vaccine."
The benefits of an oral vaccine go beyond safety and efficacy because oral medications tend to have fewer side effects, Kidron pointed out.
The vaccine can be shipped at refrigerator temperature and even stored at room temperature, "making it logistically easier to obtain anywhere in the world," he added.
Finally, an oral vaccine would not require professional administration.
BUT THE ISRAELIAN OROVAX IS NOT THE ONLY ONE WORKING ON THE ORAL VACCINE
However, Oravax isn't the only company developing an oral Covid-19 vaccine. Trials are also underway to develop nasal spray forms of Covid-19 vaccines. Like that of researchers at Rice University. The project to develop an inhalable vaccine is led by Rutgers University and scientists from Rice and Northeastern University and has produced two vaccine strategies. Both are scalable and adaptable and can be transported and stored at room temperature.
Finally, another oral Covid vaccine could be Italian. The State University of Milan has in fact developed LeCoVax2, a new type of vaccine against Covid-19. The serum was created in collaboration with VisMederi Research , a company of the VisMederi group specializing in the research and development of vaccines, and thanks to funding from the Romeo and Enrica Invernizzi Foundation . According to the researchers, there is an option to administer LeCoVax2 orally.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/primo-piano/israele-testera-il-vaccino-anti-covid-orale-tutti-i-dettagli/ on Sat, 24 Jul 2021 06:35:44 +0000.