Toronto, April 16: The first clinical trial of the Covid-19 vaccine made in Canada has been conducted. Developed by University of Alberta researcher and CEO of Entos Pharmaceuticals, Dr. John Lewis, the phase 1 of the clinical trial of that vaccine has been applied to the human body yesterday.
That vaccine is called Covigenix VAX-001, which was given to participants at the Canadian Center for Vaccinology in Halifax, Nova Scotia. There a total of 73 participants between ages 18 to 55 and 65 to 84 years have been scheduled to apply it accordingly. Entos Pharmaceuticals expects that within two months they will know the safety profiles of the vaccine and at the same time Health Canada will approve the use of these DNA-based vaccines.
In a press release, Dr. Lewis said, “We need to get 16 billion doses worldwide to beat this pandemic, and we believe DNA is the perfect way to approach that.” Earlier this year, Lewis said the Entos vaccine has shown a “strong neutralizing antibody response” in pre-clinical testing and is expected to provide protection against the original strain of SARS-CoV-2, as well as its main variants currently circulating worldwide. Researchers also believe the vaccine will provide protection after a single dose.
Meanwhile, Entos’ vaccine was conceived of through homegrown ingenuity, its physical production has been pushed forward through months of work at the University of Alberta’s Alberta Cell Therapy Manufacturing (ACTM) facility.
Since the summer of 2020, Entos has received $9.2 million in total funding to develop its vaccine, $5 million from the National Research Council of Canada Industrial Research Assistance Program and $4.2 million from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. The funding has been enough to bring the vaccine to its Phase 1 clinical trial, but much more will be needed to keep it on the path toward final approval. To get it into people’s arms, the total cost could run into several hundred million dollars.
In this connection Dr. Lewis said, “It’s actually not too late for Canada to make the needed investments in its vaccine development and manufacturing. If we invest early and decisively into solutions, we can get those solutions in a timely fashion.”