VBI Vaccines Inc. said Wednesday the first clinical data from a Phase I trial of a pan-coronavirus vaccine candidate produced broad and durable protection against COVID-19 variants of concern.
The news sent its stock up more than 8% in early trade.
The Cambridge, Mass.-based company said the trial involved 101 adults aged 18 to 64 years old who had received either two or three doses of a mRNA COVID vaccine licensed by Health Canada, and assessed both one- and two-dose booster regimens of the vaccine dubbed VBI-2901.
“All participants saw boosting and/or high neutralizing responses against a panel of COVID-19 variants, including Wuhan, Delta, Beta, Omicron BA.5, as well as multiple animal coronaviruses including bat and pangolin variants,” the company said in a statement.
The protective titers remained through interim data point at six months, and showed no safety signals or grade 3 or 4 adverse effects.
“Participants with low baseline neutralization titers (geometric mean titer (GMT): 148 IU50/mL), who are at the highest risk of infection, saw the greatest vaccine-induced boosting effects across all variants tested at Day 28, after one dose, with increases of: 8.5x against Wuhan, 9.1x against Delta, 14.2x against Beta, and 5.8x against Omicron BA.5,” said the statement.
For more read: 5 things to know about the new COVID-19 vaccine
After five months, there was only about a 25% reduction in GMT against Wuhan compared with peak responses, while a recently published study found a roughly 77% decline in GMT against Wuhan after five months in nearly 4,000 healthcare workers in Israel after a third dose of an mRNA vaccine.
The World Health Organization currently has three variants of interest, or VOIs, and seven under monitoring, or VUMs, a lesser desgination.
The EG.5 variant, dubbed Eris, is now the most prevalent of the threeVOIs, said the WHO in its most recent epidemiological update published on Sept. 1.
Eris accounted for 26.1% of sequences submitted to a central database in the week through Aug. 13, surpassing XBB.1.16, which accounted for 22.7% of sequences, said the update. The third VOI is XBB.1.5, which accounted for 10.2% of sequences.
Meanwhile, BA.2.86, dubbed pirola, remains one of seven VUMs. Pirola was classified as a VUM on Aug. 17, and 21 sequences had been reported from seven countries, as of Aug. 30, the update noted.
“The potential impact of the high number of mutations in BA.2.86 is presently unknown and is under assessment,” said the WHO in its update.
The other VUMs are BA.2.75, CH.1.1, XBB, XBB.1.9.1, XBB.1.9.2 and XBB.2.3.
The WHO recently said it would switch to a once-every-four-week schedule for its updates on COVID going forward. The move comes as the agency transitions its surveillance of the disease to long-term prevention, control and management, and away from an emergency response.
But it also comes at a time when many countries have greatly reduced their surveillance and monitoring of COVID, as they move out of pandemic mode. The WHO has urged them to keep up their pandemic infrastructure as COVID will remain a major threat and will not be eradicated.
VBI’s stock
VBIV,
has fallen 95% in the year to date, while the SPDR S&P Biotech ETF
XBI
has fallen 12% and the S&P 500
SPX
has gained 11.3%
Read also: Famed historian laments distrust of vaccines that has divided America: ‘Viruses do not vote’.
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