It won’t be enough to find a vaccine that works against COVID-19. Scientists will then need to quickly make enough vaccine for hundreds of millions — perhaps billions — of people.
One San Diego biotech’s solution to this manufacturing challenge? A vaccine that makes more of itself.
TriLink Biotechnologies has partnered with researchers at Imperial College London to test such a vaccine in a trial slated to begin in mid-June. If successful, the approach could help get a COVID-19 vaccine to a wide swath of the population quickly, says Anton McCaffrey, TriLink’s director of emerging science and innovation.
“Right now, everybody wants to go at warp speed,” McCaffrey said. “You need to know that you can make (a vaccine) at the scale that’s required to vaccinate a substantial part of the population.”
A copycat vaccine
TriLink’s vaccine uses genes that viruses normally rely on to copy their genetic material. Only this time, those genes help copy a vaccine that focuses the immune system’s attention on the surface of the novel coronavirus. After copying itself over the course of a couple weeks, the vaccine would eventually be cleared from a person’s system, according to McCaffrey.
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The viral genes that allow the vaccine to copy itself also make it larger and trickier to produce, but scientists wouldn’t need to make as much. The company estimates that the approach reduces the amount of vaccine each person would need by 25- to 50-fold.
Because a self-replicating vaccine copies itself in the same way that a virus does, it would set off the same alarm bells triggered by infection. That could be a good thing, McCaffrey says, as an antiviral response would lead to a stronger immune counterattack.
That will need to be shown by clinical trials. Imperial College researchers will begin a Phase 1 clinical trial to test the vaccine’s safety in mid-June. If that goes well, UK scientists will run a larger trial testing whether the vaccine protects against COVID-19.
TriLink can make enough vaccine for the clinical trials. But McCaffrey says that it would need to build new facilities or license out its technology to make enough vaccine for global use.
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TriLink Biotechnologies employs about 200 people and was founded in San Diego in 1996.
San Diego biotech Arcturus Therapeutics is exploring a similar COVID-19 vaccine strategy in partnership with Singapore’s national health authority.
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June 10, 2020 at 02:27AM
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San Diego biotech to help with trial of COVID-19 vaccine that makes more of itself - The San Diego Union-Tribune
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