With the news of the approval of the first human clinical trials of a Spanish vaccine, the one developed by the pharmaceutical company Hipra, by the Spanish Agency of Medicines and Health Products (AEMPS), the drug on which the private company is working is at the forefront of Spanish research against COVID-19. But it is not the only one in the business sector that is carrying out projects along these lines. Among the private Spanish names studying a vaccine against the coronavirus, in addition to Hipra, others such as Viralgen Vector Core, Innoup Farma, Algenex, the Zendal group and IrsiCaixa stand out.
Mariano Esteban: “I am in favour of combining doses of different vaccines”.
Learn more
Technology with Algenex pupae
The Madrid-based company Algenex is working on a very novel technological platform: the use of insect pupae to develop and produce a vaccine against COVID-19. They have named this technology CrisBio, and it promises to increase the speed of creation of this type of product, which would also help other countries gain access to vaccines. The biotech company is researching a vaccine based on a vector or viral vehicle. That is, they use the baculovirus, a virus harmless to humans and genetically manipulated to infect the pupae. Thus, the cells of these begin to produce the recombinant protein that will serve, once purified and finished the drug, to trigger the immune response in the body.
This technology could be used not only to develop the company’s vaccine, but also as a platform for other baculovirus-based vaccines against COVID-19, such as the US vaccine Novavax. It could even be used for other viruses due to its high production capacity. Algenex already has approval from the European Medicines Agency (EMA) to use this chrysalis technology in a product against rabbit hemorrhagic disease.
Innoup Farma’s oral vaccine
Innoup Farma is a biopharmaceutical company located in Pamplona, Navarra, which is studying together with the University of Navarra a vaccine against the coronavirus administered orally, in order to generate immunity in the mucous membranes, the entry point of the virus.
The vaccine, which is in the preclinical phase, works with nanoparticles containing the encapsulated and inactivated coronavirus. The group is also working on the development of a vaccine for peanut allergy using the same nanoparticle technology that generates immunity through mucosal administration.
Viralgen Vector Core’s viral vectors and the Zendal group
The Donostia-based company is working with international research groups, such as Massachusetts General Brigham Hospital (MGB) and Harvard University, to produce a vaccine against coronavirus through recombinant adeno-associated viral vectors (rAAV) used in gene therapy.
The modified virus is used as a vehicle to give the body’s cells the necessary instructions to synthesize the necessary protein, in this case the ‘S’ or spike protein of the coronavirus, to generate the immune response. A similar technology is used by the Galician group Zendal, which brings together several biotechnology companies such as Biofabri. The latter has several projects for the manufacture of vaccines.
The Galician company collaborates with the development of the CSIC vaccine by Mariano Esteban and Juan García Arriaza. Esteban’s group uses as a vector or vehicle the modified vaccinia virus of Ankara (MVA) which, in the same way as in Viralgen’s vaccine, gives instructions to synthesize a protein of the coronavirus and activate the immune response.
IrsiCaixa and virus-like particles
The IrsiCaixa AIDS Research Institute is collaborating with scientists from the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC) and the Animal Health Research Center of the Institute for Research and Technology in Food and Agriculture (IRTA-CReSA). The aim is to investigate the antibodies generated against the coronavirus, as well as to develop drugs and vaccines against COVID-19.
The private foundation uses virus-like particles (VLPs) to obtain a vaccine. based on molecules similar to those of the coronavirus, but which are not infectious. These particles would have on their surface the ‘S’ protein of the virus, so the immune response would be generated, but the symptoms of the disease would not develop.
The most advanced project to date is that of the Girona-based company Hipra. The company, which is in the process of recruiting volunteers, is researching a vaccine based on two recombinant proteins of the Alpha and Beta variants. In addition, public research groups, such as those of the CSIC, are also working with different technologies to achieve the first Spanish product that manages to generate immunity against the coronavirus.
No Comment