Coronavirus: Bill Gates funds a vaccine that uses …

The Swedish-American laboratory Novavax is developing a vaccine against the coronavirus funded by billionaire Bill Gates which differs from the rest of the formulas that circulate in the world by including, among others, a substance derived from an ancient Mapuche tree: the quillay.

The quillay (Mapudungun küllay) is a species endemic to central Chile that the Mapuche have used since Antiquity as a medicinal plant to cure diseases of the stomach and respiratory tract to skin problems and rheumatism. Its healing properties, over the years, have also been used by the cosmetics, food and pharmaceutical industries.

The properties of this tree, explain the specialists, are found in the extracted from its bark, rich in a glycoside called saponin, It is used in vaccines as well as in cosmetics, moth insecticides, foaming agents for drinks and additives for photographic films.Due to the large amount of saponin contained in the bark, the extract Quillay was also used by the Mapuche as a detergent. .

Studies in UK

On September 25, the company Novavax announced that it had started in UK a phase III study with a vaccine against covid-19 which would have the participation of 10,000 volunteers between 18 and 84 years old.

Based on the first reported results, the formula obtained a 96.4% efficacy against the original strain of coronavirus and 86.3% against the British strain. In addition, in the prevention of the disease in severe modality, it was 100% effective.

The data has already been passed on to UK authorities and is being analyzed by the country’s Medicines and Health Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA). The US regulatory agency FDA is also expected to do the same in April.

The vaccine contains small particles of S or Spike protein that are present on the surface of the virus. This is recognized by the immune system generating antibodies against it, a action which will be reinforced by the adjuvant – as is known in medicine to any substance which is added to a vaccine to enhance or direct the immune response against an antigen – based on saponins quillay.

“The adjuvant is not the one that protects. This is the active component. The adjuvant is the support, a kind of transporter that enhances antigenic activity», Said Andrés González, Managing Director of Desert King, the Chilean company that manufactures this vaccine enhancer.

How is the process

In May 2020, González explained, Novavax placed a large purchase order that led the company to “increase production by 2,000%, or 20 times more” than the production it had in previous years. In 2021, the businessman said: “we had to multiply this amount by three”.

However, Novavax is not the only one interested in saponins produced in Chile, as the company works with three other laboratories. “There is a lot of lab interest in saponins and it’s not just from now on. These are developments of a time, not a year. We have been contacted by many laboratories. With Novavax, we have been working for a long time, first with influenza vaccines. I also know that there are other labs around the world that buy quillay bark, but I don’t know what they do with it or how they work, ”he said.

“The product we make is highly concentrated saponin. It is a high-tech product, with very complex concentration processes. It is sold in powder, in a format defined by them and shipped by the kilo. One kilo is enough for a million hundred thousand vaccines», He detailed.

According to the specialist’s explanation, not all of the saponins in quillay are used as vaccine adjuvants. It is also not possible to extract this component from all trees. For this reason, the process begins with finding the ideal tree, taking a census and testing the bark.

In these scabs, the businessman pointed out, there are 50 saponins present. But only two serve as a booster for the vaccine: qs7 and qs21. Thus, you only work with trees rich in these two saponins. “We designed a method of testing, selection and purification and we patented it,” said González.

According to the director of Desert King, no trees are destroyed in the process, as bark extracted from pruning is used. From these crusts, specifies the businessman, an extract is obtained which is filtered several times until the desired concentration is obtained. Then the resulting liquid is sent to a special dryer, which leaves it turned into powder.

“In the central area of ​​the country, quillay trees are under water stress, so it is natural to find a tree that needs to be pruned in order for it to live, as the best way to make the native forest viable is to prune it. . We work with Conaf, we present them with a management plan and they approve. Everything is certified, ”he said.

The company also has clone plantations, from trees already tested and which have the necessary concentration of saponins to be part of the adjuvant of the vaccine.