Biocad: SARS-COV-2 mRNA vaccine

2020: Start of vaccine development

On March 18, 2020, Biocad informed Zdrav.Expert about the start of development of the SARS-COV-2 coronavirus vaccine. The development will be based on previous developments in the creation of mRNA oncovaccin, the company has a lot of experience in this area. The first animal studies will be held at the end of April 2020.

Biocad

According to Dmitry Morozov, CEO of Biocad, the whole world is working to find a vaccine for coronavirus:

As of March 18, 2020, 66 companies around the world have announced the development of drugs for the treatment of SARS-COV-19, 51 of them are working on the search for a vaccine, 15 - on drugs based on DNA/RNA/small molecules. I am convinced that the more intellectual forces involved in the task, the sooner the world will respond to this challenge.

Three vaccine options will be developed. The short development time is explained by the fact that, unlike the manufacture of traditional vaccines, it takes five to six months to create a vaccine based on reorganized proteins, the mRNA vaccine can be manufactured in a shorter time.

Since the end of January 2020, researchers from Dongfang Hospital at Shanghai Tongji University and the Chinese biotechnology company Stemirna have been working on the vaccine, which synthesize matrix ribonucleic acid (mRNA) with several sequences of different antigens. The other day, researchers from the University of Utrecht (Netherlands), in collaboration with Erasmus University Medical Center and Harbour Biomed, reported the discovery of the first human monoclonal antibody that is capable of blocking the attachment of Covid-19-causing coronavirus SARS-CoV-2.