Epygen Biotech and Dyadic advance low-cost COVID-19 vaccine candidate
The companies aim to initially produce 100 million doses a year, with a price point of around $2 per dose. The vaccine could be used as a primary or booster against present and future SARS-CoV-2 variants.
The companies are also looking to raise around $26m for Phase 3 trials, as well as boosting production capacity in hopes of rolling out the vaccine as soon as possible.
Potential of C1 platform
Jupiter, Florida headquartered Dyadic International is developing what it believes will be a potentially significant biopharmaceutical gene expression platform based on the fungus Thermothelomyces heterothallica (formerly Myceliophthora thermophila), named C1.
The C1 microorganism, which enables the development and large-scale manufacture of low-cost proteins, has the potential to be further developed into a safe and efficient expression system that may help speed up the development, lower production costs and improve the performance of biologic vaccines and drugs at flexible commercial scales, according to the company.
Dyadic entered into a collaboration with Mumbai-based Epygen Biotech, a company engaged in both research and manufacturing of therapeutic proteins for critical diseases and novel vaccines, for a COVID-19 vaccine in October 2020.
"We are pleased that the Government of India will be supporting the development of Epygen's COVID-19 vaccine candidate through Phase 1 and Phase 2 clinical trials using Dyadic's C1 protein production platform,” said Mark Emalfarb, Dyadic's President and CEO.
“As Dyadic and our licensees advance vaccine programs through human clinical safety trials globally, we expect that our C1 technology platform will be used to manufacture and distribute affordable vaccines, and other therapeutic treatments for millions of patients in India and other countries. These efforts work towards relieving regional populations' dependence on other nations for life saving vaccines and therapies."
