Novartis Inks Deal to Make Experimental Coronavirus Vaccine
May 28 2020 - 6:25PM
Dow Jones News
By Denise Roland
Novartis AG has agreed to manufacture a gene-based coronavirus
vaccine being developed by scientists at Massachusetts Eye and Ear
hospital, Massachusetts General and the University of Pennsylvania,
paving the way for human testing to begin later this year.
The Swiss drugmaker's gene therapy unit AveXis is already making
test batches of the vaccine and plans to start producing doses
later in the summer that can be used for a clinical trial, said
Dave Lennon, the unit's president.
If testing goes smoothly, the vaccine could be made available on
an emergency basis by the end of the year, according to Mason
Freeman, director and founder of the Massachusetts General Hospital
Translational Research Center, and one of the lead researchers.
Novartis, one of the world's biggest pharmaceutical companies by
sales, had been a notable holdout as other large rivals announced
coronavirus-vaccine efforts. Most recently, Merck & Co. said it
was pursuing two candidates.
No vaccine has been proven effective against Covid-19, the
illness caused by the novel coronavirus. Ten are in human testing
and more than 100 are in early studies, according to the World
Health Organization.
The vaccine that AveXis has agreed to make would work like a
gene therapy in that it uses an inactive virus to deliver DNA into
the body, the vaccine's researchers said.
The DNA would teach cells how to make the "spike protein" found
on the surface of the new coronavirus, the researchers said. The
hope is that cells in the body making this protein will elicit an
immune response to the virus that will protect against it.
There aren't any approved vaccines against any illness that work
like a gene therapy, but the researchers said they hope that using
a proven DNA delivery method will give their candidate a good shot.
Most of the handful of approved gene therapies use viruses from the
same family.
"We're playing basketball on a court where we don't know where
the hoop is," said Luk Vandenberghe, director of the Grousbeck Gene
Therapy Center at Massachusetts Eye and Ear and one of the lead
researchers. "We have to shoot in as many directions as possible,
and at least we have a different shot and angle."
The inactivated virus used by the vaccine isn't found in humans,
meaning the immune system is unlikely to destroy it before it can
deliver the genetic material to cells, the researchers said. That
is a potential pitfall for vaccines based on inactivated
viruses.
Viralgen, a gene therapy manufacturer based in Spain, also
agreed to make a supply of the vaccine candidate for use in
clinical trials.
AveXis makes Zolgensma, one of the few gene therapies currently
available in the U.S.
The Novartis unit has so far committed to manufacture doses for
animal studies and a phase 1 trial, free of charge, Dr. Lennon
said. The phase 1 trial will likely involve 50 to 60 people, the
researchers said. It has the option to manufacture larger
quantities of vaccine for a larger human study and for eventual
sale should the vaccine progress to those stages.
Larger-scale manufacture would likely require financing, Dr.
Lennon said. Right now AveXis has the capacity to churn out only a
few million doses of vaccine a year.
Many companies developing vaccines against Covid-19 are seeking
support from governments and other funders to ramp up production of
their candidates.
Other large drugmakers pursuing coronavirus vaccines include
Sanofi SA., GlaxoSmithKline PLC, Pfizer Inc., Johnson &
Johnson, Merck & Co. and AstraZeneca PLC.
Among the most advanced candidates are vaccines from Boston-area
biotech Moderna Inc. and China's CanSino Biologics Inc.
Write to Denise Roland at Denise.Roland@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
May 28, 2020 18:10 ET (22:10 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Novartis (NYSE:NVS)
Historical Stock Chart
From Aug 2024 to Sep 2024
Novartis (NYSE:NVS)
Historical Stock Chart
From Sep 2023 to Sep 2024