Therapeutic Covid-19 vaccine may slow global pandemic

PEACHTREE CORNERS, GA, USA I August 10, 2020 I GeneCure Biotechnologies (www.genecure.com), a clinical stage biotechnology company developing novel human vaccines based on its patented SimVec platform technology, announced today that it has launched a therapeutic vaccine program for Covid-19 infection (www.clinicaltrials.gov; NCT04428073).

The outbreak of Covid-19 has spread to 5 continents and causes near 20 millions confirmed cases. Recent clinical evidences suggest SARS-COV-2 may have a long incubation period and infected individuals may take several weeks to develop symptoms or disease. After infecting with Covid-19, the majority of individuals develop mild symptoms, yet some still transmit virus to others even without clinical symptoms. The treatment option for patients with mild or no clinical symptoms is very limited at this time. This situation becomes a serious public health issue — community transmission.

Dr. Tung, CEO, stated “Traditional vaccines are given to healthy people to prevent infection. However, a therapeutic vaccine is given to infected or uninfected high-risk people to prevent disease and infection. A therapeutic vaccine aims to prevent severe complications of an infection by reinforcing or broadening defenses when specific immune responses are unable to do so during the natural course of the disease and when a conventional antiviral therapy is not sufficient.” 

GeneCure’s therapeutic Covid-19 vaccine is based on SimVec platform which has been utilized for therapeutic vaccines for HIV (NCT01428596) and HCV (NCT04318379).  SimVec delivery platform elicits rapid and strong cell-mediated immune responses, which play critical roles in eliminating viral infected cells. Pre-clinical and clinical studies have shown that the therapeutic HIV vaccine was well tolerated and effective in boosting cell-mediated immunity in HIV infected patients. Durable control of viral load was seen after a 12-week treatment interruption in vaccinated participants (PMID: 27002500). Furthermore, the markers of systemic immune activation/inflammation were also significantly reduced in vaccinated patients (PMID: 32387010). 

Dr. Tung also stated “We believe that an effective therapeutic vaccine will prevent disease progression in infected persons and reduce viral transmission which will not only be critical for people at risk for Covid-19 infection but also alleviate the excessive burden on our healthcare system.” 

About GeneCure Biotechnologies
GeneCure Biotechnologies is a private biotechnology company developing novel human vaccines based on its patented lentiviral delivery platform. The mission of the company is to develop safe, potent, and simple to use human vaccines to manage viral infections and cancers. GeneCure’s lead product is a therapeutic HIV vaccine that is currently being tested as a first-in-human, proof-of-concept therapy for HIV infected patients. Other products in the pipeline include therapeutic Hepatitis C and B vaccines for chronic infected patients. GeneCure possesses in-house GMP manufacture capabilities for the production of clinical grade materials.

SOURCE: GeneCure Biotechnologies