RE: re shares in N4P12 Nov 2020 21:54
So, the key thing to remember here is that we’re not in the race to develop the first COVID vaccine. We’re using our COVID proof of concept work to show to some extent what we already know that and that’s that Nuvec can deliver antibodies and so, we’ll be showing that Nuvec can deliver COVID antibodies. Showing this is going to be an absolute key milestone for the data pack that we talked about earlier that we’re generating.
It’s also important distinction, I think, to make the difference between what we call vaccine efficacy and vaccine efficiency. So, a vaccine efficacy is ‘does a vaccine work’, and that’s going to be determined by whoever owns the active part of the vaccine, be at Pfizer, Medina. The FDA has already said that they’re going to drop the hurdle rate for vaccine efficacy to just 50% so that means efficiency of the vaccine is going to be vital and what efficiency means is, so you got an effective vaccine, but how many people can the vaccine actually be delivered to and that’s where Nuvec comes in.
So, our key milestones, not only to show that Nuvec works but also to give potential partners both confidence and the belief that Nuvec will be the best delivery system to help them achieve a good vaccine efficiency. So, DNA uses electroporation, an electrical device, mRNA, as I said earlier, uses lipids that need freezing so that’s going to seriously hamper their ability to achieve efficient vaccine coverage so they may well work, but can they be efficiently rolled out?
I think vaccine developers are going to be showing that they have to be reformulating their vaccines in the future to find more efficient delivery systems and that’s how we plan to position Nuvec for that.
So, demonstrating that proof of concept for COVID is also highlighting how Nuvec can be an efficient delivery system for other vaccines as well and not just COVID, they’re going to be key milestones for us.
Q4: Talking about delivery, why does an orally administered vaccine have a significant greater challenges than a subcutaneous injection?
A4: Working with the very hostile environment of the stomach is very difficult so particularly if you look at nucleic acid systems, which is where our focus is, exposure of a nuclear acid like DNA or RNA in the stomach is incredibly difficult to then maintain it. So, the lipid systems that have been used for mRNA just will not work in that environment and electroporation they’re using for DNA is just totally irrelevant.
So, if got a nucleic acid vaccine and you want to look at an oral system then you are going to have to have a different delivery system, that’s going to be essential so that, again, is where Nuvec works.
We’ve already seen with other work, how good Nuvec is at staying in the upper intestine and now we’ve shown that it not only protects DNA from nucleic but also it protects it in the acidic environment., That gives us confidence that we can press on with our investigations for showing how Nuvec